


Storm Detachment

by Arrisha



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Voldemort Wins, M/M, Second War with Voldemort, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-09
Updated: 2013-12-09
Packaged: 2018-01-04 05:08:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1076895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arrisha/pseuds/Arrisha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During World War III, Harry Potter, the orphaned boy who once survived the Killing Curse, was thought to be Lord Voldemort's right hand. On the second of May 1998, no one knew why Potter chose to follow us, instead of dying. But we all suspected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta MirandNack for helping me through this story. 
> 
> A lot of reading had to be done so this fiction would be completed. I collocate here the bibliography I used.
> 
> The Complete Hitler - Speeches and Proclamations - Max Donorus  
> Speeches of Adolf Hitler: Early Speeches, 1922-1924, and Other Selected Passages - by Adolf Hitler and Norman H. Baynes  
> Mein Kampf - Adolf Hitler  
> Downfall - script  
> Der Letzte Zeuge - Rochus Misch  
> Five Days That Shocked The World - Nicholas Best
> 
> ********************************

 

* * *

_"During World War III, Harry Potter, the orphaned boy who once survived the Killing Curse, was thought to be Lord Voldemort's right hand. He stood beside him, dedicated, loyal and silent, as a man and a soldier. Young Potter would never talk much. He would whisper his thoughts to the Dark Lord's ear and he would point at the world map with his fingers, trailing lines, suggesting war plans for the army, plotting political murders and never talking directly to any of us. It was said that when Great Britain surrendered, Potter himself created the plan for Europe, working as a secret operator for our leader. They were always traveling together, commanding the British Army and talking to the soldiers about our aim. Harry Potter used to be the one who organized the Dark Lord's speeches and interviews for the press. At that time, he was the most trusted man of the dictatorship. On the second of May 1998, no one knew why Potter chose to follow us, instead of dying. But we all suspected."_

"Memories Of The Blood Purge War", Lucius Malfoy - 2030 (page 30)

* * *

 

In 1998, Voldemort sent the first warnings to Europe about his expansionist ambitions, moving on an undisguised slaughter, violating the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy for the first time since 1692. Then, in 1999, he ensured the preservation and expansion of our race by setting up a new project under the name of Blood Control, which put into action the exile of the Muggle-borned and the blood traitors to the concentration camps we had built in Channel Islands, sparing their lives, and sending the Muggles and Squibs to other prison-like, stricter camps in Orkney Islands – to be executed on the grounds of their provenance.

Soon after my decision to follow him, the Dark Lord began the War. He sent twenty Death Eaters in charge of completing a list of every person in England that should be immediately arrested. We moved on to the reconstruction of the British Ministry of Magic, creating new domains and redefining the old ones, naming the main sector Department of Magical Law and Blood Control Enforcement. I asked him several times to let me run this unit, secretly seeking a way to track the place my friends were at in the camps, but the Dark Lord wouldn’t hear of it.He would never entrust me with the lists of the wanted and the exiled ones. Furthermore, I would receive the Cruciatus curse every time I’d start asking questions about Ron or Hermione, so soon enough I stopped talking about them and just did my job. Still, he kept denying giving me the very position – and he nominated Lucius Malfoy Head of the Department.

It took Lucius almost seven months to publicly call out for every muggle and muggleborn in Britain. Soldiers of our army broke into their homes and forced them to present themselves for their exile. The Ministry fiercely seized wands, searched through personal items, confiscated their money. Innocent people saw their houses being destroyed and burned. We were calling them in gradually, once a week, alphabetically. Children were left behind alone for weeks and lovers were separated. I witnessed everything, and signed what I had to when I had to.

After England was finally cleaned, we conquered France. The French Minister of Magic, understanding he didn’t have any chance to win the battle, made an agreement before our military reached their borders. We recruited their soldiers through to our army and trained them. The Dark Lord was in love with our plan. He would talk about the New World, amazed and incredibly sure of himself.

The defeat of Italy, Austria, Ukraine, and Spain ensued quite swiftly. We are currently besieging Germany, which even until today resists us. As time passed, and new victories came through, we became stronger and even more people desired to rank to the Death Eaters and the Wizard Military. The Dark Lord set me as a Commander. I am his trusted one. I am feared the same way he is and all of his followers respect me.

In his first famous public speech in 1999, he called on the English people and his words soon traveled the whole Europe.

"The great time has just begun. Wizards have awoken. We have won power in England. Now we have to win over the others. I know it must have been difficult, when you desired a change that never came, and you remained hidden from the world for over three centuries,” he had begun, “while we were forced to hide our citizens, our powers, our children, because for the short time we lived among these muggles we were tortured, killed, and burned for our magic. We, wizards, were being always mistreated and abused by those inferior viruses! You were told you mustn’t react, that you must obey, must give in, you must submit to their laws and pretend you are of their kind so you could survive in your own neighborhood.” By that time I knew it. They didn’t follow out of fear. They adored him, indeed. “… What we dreamed of for centuries has become reality. The most precious possession you have in this world is your magic. Some of you might call me a murderer. Some of you might think of me as a dangerous man who might harm you, while these miasmas were the only ones who did any damage to you. It was them. I was not the one who made you lock your little ones inside so they would not be a subject of mockery. I did not tell you to lie nor to keep your God given gift to yourselves. They did. Because of the muggles, we cannot exist. We cannot act. My dream is on your side. We are wizards. We are not the demons they treated us like. They are the only dangerous ones. Those weak, useless people, incapable of doing the simplest things, infecting the Earth with their oils and chemical poisons so they can travel or communicate in the ways we always could. They are abominable. They are dangerous to us, to our planet, to our future. They harmed our people and ridiculously shrank our national borders. Are you not furious? Are you not tired?”

Millions of people beneath us screamed and praised him, shouting his name, clapping, raising flags with the Dark Mark and casting sparklers with their wands.

Afterwards, the Dark Lord had cast a silent Sonorus on my neck and had let me speak.

“We know our needs,” I had claimed. “We have been underprivileged and misled. And as long as Europe is ruled by non-magical people, we will never be free. However. there’s no need to worry; we will protect you. We –” I had looked at the Dark Lord for encouragement “We will give you a nation in which you will never have to hide again. Europe must be cleaned of the muggles. Europe must become ours.”

Later on that day, I had received another Cruciatus Curse, for not memorizing my part perfectly. The following week, a picture of me and the Dark Lord talking to a sea of people appeared in every magazine in the world.

As I remember these days, almost three years ago, examining our process through the war and our wins and failures since then, I realize that I have given my best to remain quiet and obedient. How much of myself I have killed and locked away to accomplish that, it doesn’t matter. The greater good was always more important than Harry Potter.


	2. Chapter 2

_During the beastly extended_   _period of the Voldemortian Domination, nearly all of the Muggleborn communities collapsed under financial pressure and shrunk to crowded ghettos, eventually failing to rescue their people from the final British massacre of the spares. At the same time, the Ministry dispensed badges of shame to be worn at all times by Muggleborns – an embarrassing stigma of their ancestry._ _The Blood Purge Movement enacted rigid and stark laws. As the level of discrimination increased, non-pureblood people had to overcome daily difficulties in their workplaces while bank accounts were being frozen or arbitrarily opened and emptied by our men. Fugitives had no chance to survive more than a couple of days in the streets - family members would turn against each other, betraying their loved ones with no hesitation, lurching for possible spies from the government, giving away secrets and addresses to anyone who would offer even a puny piece of bread._  
  
 _What appeared to be a show of political strength was nothing but a mission which sent our Englishmen to their doom. We did rely on Harry Potter more than we should have ever done, unwisely overcoming clues for the outcome of the war – but our tongues were tied and we had to behave respectfully. Meanwhile, the commissar, along with his party, took the initiative to set a curfew to prevent the gathering of rebels and possible resistance groups after the sunset. The statute had clarified that whoever was found outdoors after eight o'clock should immediately be arrested and negotiated. Behind the closed doors of the security departments the forced civility of the streets was disappearing, and soon word had it around that the old pureblood families of the North were joining conversations about immigrating to America._  
  
 _We, as Death Eaters, were all convinced that the hatred and the filth of the world had its roots deep in the soiled blood of the non-magical human race. There were moments, when the days passed without a single letter from the battlefield, guilt and agony building up inside me as I prayed to hear from my son  just to make sure he was alive, that I'd watch Voldemort and Potter planning their next move and I'd wonder, if we were any different, or any better than the Muggles who would happily burn us in the centre of a public square for our magic._

  
_"Memories Of The Blood Purge War", Lucius Malfoy - 2030 (page 39)_   


* * *

  
  


 

"We have a wide front here. We will-"  
  
"My Lord. Many of our men are wounded and expect of you to send help. Their medical state does not permitapparation. The west battlefield-"  
  
"They failed," Voldemort hisses. "Let them die."  
  
Dolohov moves the pawns on the map, disappointed. It's a big one and quite old, made of expensive leather and designed by goblin ink. It is laid across the table in the dining room, patiently being subjected to smudging and marking for the last couple of hours. A dozen of men are standing around Europe, wrangling loudly, every single one of them absolutely confident about his own shitty opinion. The elf, wearing an oily fabric bag as a dress, brings another bottle of whiskey and places it near Spain before he starts serving us.  _It looks scared_ , I think. I pity it wordlessly and then ignore it, having learned to hide away my disgust long ago. Its state reminds me of Hermione and her funny movement about the elf rights, along with her grumpy face when we’d ignore her efforts to make us participate too. Ron and I should have cared more about it back then.   
  
Across Germany is drawn a wide red X – one would think, judging from its size, as it completely covers the painted country, that we indeed have found some way to get it this time. Lucius is tapping his wand at his arm, annoyed and mentally absent as usual, the sparkle gone from his face long ago. Patience is a privilege Death Eaters don't have. Even Malfoy, a true aristocrat, pureblood, educated directly from the maîtres of savoir vivre, cannot maintain paying attention to Dolohov, even for a single meeting. How the hell Antonin managed to become a field marshal is beyond me. The whole time his soldiery was entrenching in the line of French-German borders, the coward stayed back in London, planning his own battle from his very office, postponing all visits to belligerent grounds, while all of his men fell pathetically to eleven Muggle bombs. The noises of the room are starting to give me a headache and I rub my temples.   
  
"But where did they come from?" Antonin asks. "Had the second army retreated in time-"  
  
"Whining won't bring them back, so you might as well get over -"  
  
"Why don't _you_  get over your own failures, Smith? How many were they, after all? Three thousand? Four?"  
  
"The second army, went to the battle with no instructions and was wiped out the moment Antonin's men set foot in Germany." Repeats the general for the third this evening.  
  
Dolohov ignores him and goes on. "The muggles are advancing south to Czech Republic, my Lord. Word has it around an underground resistance might be advancing. If they are armed-"  
  
"Armed? Define  _armed_ , you stupid slacker! Do they have magic? Do they have powers? We will not blench for plastic weapons!" yells John, a young soldier.  
  
"These _plastic_  weapons blew up half our mission," I remind the Dark Lord calmly, ignoring the skirmishes of the room. His temper has seen better days and I can tell he agrees with me. He nods.  
  
"Enough.” They stop and wait for him to speak. “The Germans are abandoning their country and an exploding curse would harm an inappropriate amount of wizards, so we will force control directly to their Ministry. It is indeed a matter of time anyway. The Minister has been considering declaring a proclamation against Mudbloods. He has agreed to a meeting." Nagini, who had been sleeping peacefully until now, hisses and climbs up to the table, offering her head to Voldemort, demanding to be petted.  
  
"My Lord." The Major raises his hand up, as if he is back to school, requesting permission to talk. He's a stupid fatman, just like the last one. And the Dark Lord killed the last one in this very room, a few months ago. I quickly browse the protocols in front of me to find the list of our missing soldiers. My arms chill as I reach for the dossier John is reading and realize the amount of men disappeared after the last battle is too large to fit in a single paper. The severely burned corpses are probably not going to be identified, ever.   
  
"You enjoined us to  _invade_  the ministry, not subjugate it, my Lord. The minister should be dead by now."  
  
"What!" I lift my eyes from the papers as Voldemort reveals his wand. This isn't good. "Did I give such an order? Did I, Kilcher?" He stands up, the chair falling abruptly to the floor behind him. "Had I not been clear enough when I said that we do  _not_ kill pure bloods?  He would bow to me eventually. We had an appointment next week to my office! When the hell did I order you to  _kill_ him?" Voldemort’s furious - I should get out of here. I clutch his arm, whispering "My Lord…", but he pushes me away, barely even noticing me.  
  
"Do you have any idea how the press is going to take that? Who do you think you are to dare disobey my orders?"  
  
Kilcher has no time to defend himself and I look away as I hear the Avada Kedavra, saving myself from witnessing yet another death this week. The body hits the ground with a  _thud_  and for a long minute no one dares to talk. I have to clench the dossier in front of me to force my fingers still. A sympathetic hand touches my shoulder. "You may be excused, Harry." I stand up, careful not to stumble over Nagini, and quickly walk to the door, nodding slightly. "Oh, Harry." I let a few seconds pass, then look back. The dead body of the Major is still among the other men; they have returned their focus to the map, the corpse still lying there as if it's not important that this man was alive a few moments ago.  
  
"Germany has been having some  _burning_ problems believing I'm not a hostile leader. The Minister's death might extend their… difficulty to trust me. What do you suggest?"  
  
It's a trap question – whatever I suggest will become  _my_ burning problem. If we declare an open war to Germany, we'll win, but from the defeat of their people nobody's going to survive. We could give them a time limit to leave the country, but they won't. I take a deep breath.  
  
"We have a strong army my Lord, and France will certainly be on our side. Still, the Death Eaters are weak and in need of rest, so incapable of another battle. We could make an offer and wait. Germans deserve the right to decide their fate, so we’d give them the chance to bow. If they don't sign their loyalty to you, and if they try to protect their Muggles, we march in, impinging where they don't expect us from."  
  
The Dark Lord smiles and his pointy teeth shine.  
  
"Excellent idea, my boy."  
  
I close the door and flee to my room.


	3. Chapter 3

_We didn't trust Harry Potter; how could he not be a traitor? The prophecy had it that he'd kill the Dark Lord someday. Wizards who respect themselves must believe in traditions and divinations and honor our origins. I do, at least. “The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord,” the Prophecy had said, right from the mouth of Cassandra Trelawney’s descendant. “Born as the seventh month dies, and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not - and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives.”  
  
I had held that prophecy in my own hands once – and it was normal for me to be proud of my role in this mission and be confident about the Dark Lord’s next moves. I was a fool; we all were, and we knew nothing. We rushed into Hogwarts to kill the brat - the famous fraud known as the Battle of Hogwarts, where it all begun - after months of chasing a hiding young Potter as if we had nothing better or of more importance to do, risking our lives with no fear or hesitation. Having faith to our Lord and our Mark – a mark that meant much more to us than we cared to show to our victims. They called us Nazis. They called us racists. We were proud of every characterization._   
  
_If they now say: "But why did you pounce on a nationalist ideology? Why follow an idea of elite Wizarding population?" my answer still remains: "Because the old ones failed miserably." When forty or fifty Muggle governments competed with their gigantic philosophical interests in the Middle Ages, ranging from that of normality down to the level of our existence treated as mythical and false, that in itself was a deadly mistake they should pay. Harry Potter used to believe that if they kept their mouths shut and their heads to the ground they would find a way out of the misery the New World brought for them. Oh, if at least this had been the case!_   
  
_Some might call it racism, indeed, and it might be, although the definition is of little importance. After the Muggles’ persecution, a new system arose in Europe, which England called the Balance of Power, and it meant in fact, genuflection of the European Countries to Britain. And this so-called Balance of Power, that was the real internal importance and core of Europe, enabled England to thrust forward undisturbed into other countries, offering comparatively little resistance. In Europe, itself, however, the awakening of the nations had already begun as we were occupied with unimportant battles – and the so-called Balance of Power, was gradually turning against us._   
  
_Our ideology was our strongest weapon. Could Muggles do what we could? We’d wonder. Could they prove themselves useful under difficult circumstances like we would at any moment of our daily lives? It was the blood that made the difference – the balance we aimed at was truly a Balance of Blood Demarcation and nothing more - what was gifted to us was denied from them and this was the reality. Our great aim was blessed and we were devoted to it with our hearts and minds. I, myself, murdered schoolmates of my beloved son, barely of age, using the Killing Curse - just because they got in the way while we were searching for Potter. We did everything we were commanded to, so the Dark Lord would commit the murder he attempted seventeen years ago. Instead of doing that, when he finally found him, he made a fool out of all of us, naming him his personal and most faithful advisor, and even more, a Commander, and shared with him his Mark, his plans, his war. How could we trust Harry Potter? We hated him._

  
"Memories of the Blood Purge War", Lucius Malfoy - 2030 (page 44)

* * *

  
  
The wind is cold and my glasses blur, making it difficult for me to see as I walk through the Malfoys’ large gardens, the dark silence of the night swallowing me up. I watch my shoes dig into the soft mud, devouring the smell of the last night’s rain, letting the memories it brings kick in with every step I make. The first time I recall myself being in the Manor was during the first year of the war, when the Snatchers caught Ron, Hermione and me to bring us to Lucius. It was my fault, once again. I had spoken Voldemort’s name while I knew we were wanted, and they found us.  
  
"The name's Taboo!” Ron had shouted to me. “I told you, Harry, I told you, we can't say it anymore – we've got to put the protection back around us – quickly – it's how they find –” and then, out of my stupidity, they caught us. Hermione’s screams from that night still echo vivid and loud in my dreams. She had always been a strong girl, and I’m sure that if she’s endured Bellatrix’s Cruciatus she will bravely endure anyone else’s, if that’s what it takes for her to stay alive. Hate and madness are essential for a strong Unforgivable, and I know no one more hateful or sick-minded than Bellatrix Lestrange. Neville’s parents were strong too - they didn’t make it though, I remind myself.  
  
When Dobby was killed, time was precious and there were many things to do, many options to consider and places to search for the Horcruxes. Although it should have been a priority, I didn’t have time to mourn, so I pushed my grief aside and kept it hidden to retrieve it again after everything was over. Then Remus was killed too, and then it was Fred as well, and Tonks, and I could not stand repressing everything that pained me. This is how I just accepted my fate – a fate of nightmares and guilt every time I’m alone and I’m reminded of them.  
  
 _Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and above all, those who live without love._ Albus Dumbledore had never been able to see beyond good intentions and pure deeds, no. He would always trust, and love, and help.  _Happiness can be found in the darkest of times_ , he used to say, and the foolish child I was would listen to him and take strength from his assurance of a better tomorrow. He’d have convinced me, almost, once upon a time, that if I followed my heart and my affection for every little living thing I’d be saved from the evil of the world and everything would be well in the end. He would have made me believe it. But then Snape murdered him – Snape, the man we knew was a traitor even when we were only fourteen and no one believed us – and I saw Dumbledore, whom until then used to believe that the greatest power of a human being is love, being killed in front of my eyes by someone he had loved and trusted.  
  
The illusions died along with him that awful night on the Hogwarts grounds. Love cannot save. Love cannot heal, cannot protect, cannot make well what was damaged by power. Power does and power undoes. Power builds and destroys. My power on Voldemort’s side is my only tool to save and heal and protect. I don’t pity the living nor do I feel sorry - I am responsible for them though, and as long as they remain protected to their exile I know there is a reason to go on.  
  
Shaking thoughts of the past from my mind I notice Lucius’ chained dogs tug at their collars as I hurry past them, and to the central yard with the big statues standing in the middle. I bet they would love to eat me alive right now, and then there is this certainty that won’t go out of my head, that Lucius would love to watch this happening from his dark window, too. They bark hungrily, their big golden bodies moving back and forth in the small amount of space they are allowed. Whining and drooling, they remind me of werewolves under the moonlight.  _Not all werewolves are bad._  
  
It might snow tonight after all. I climb up the outdoor marble steps, and after rubbing my hands to get them warm again, I bang the knocker at the door. I wait.  
  
After a good minute a skinny elf opens it and greets me.  
  
“Master Potter! Good evening, Master Potter!”  
  
I don’t bother to answer. If I encourage him to start a chit chat with me he’ll surely punish himself after I’m gone, feeling ashamed for daring annoy me with his existence. It’s a true Malfoy servant– obedient and stupid, with no occupations other than serving his master. Sometimes I think that Dobby was never an actual Pureblood elf – maybe something else was flowing through his veins, something more human, more independent. More beautiful. I toss him my scarf and gloves as he hangs my coat.   
“Where’s your master, Wibbly?” I ask.  
  
“Master Lucius Malfoy is in his office, sir. Master Draco is still in France. Do you want Wibbly to guide you to his Mater’s office, sir?”  
  
“If you please”. He hops to the left hall and pushes open a tall bookcase attached to the wall, revealing a secret passage. His index finger shows me the way. Stooping to get inside, the winter chills become stronger and I rub my palms to my arms, wondering just how old this scary house is. The passage widens after a while and becomes a large hallway, while under my feet a rich carpet is developing, which I am sure wasn’t here last month.  
  
I wonder if this place is really haunted after all, as they say, if the ancestors of the Malfoys wake up from their statues and photographs at nights and change the place of the rooms, to piss off the losers of the new generations that their family had unfortunately produced. It would be a decent explanation of why they keep all the candles unlit most of the time – or maybe it’s that the Malfoys are just as poor as everybody else these days.  
  
During my last visits over the war I tried to memorize the way to Lucius’ office, but it appears to keep changing every time after my visits, and the hallways never have the same length twice. If I had ten men in my battalion that I’d trust with my life, I’d sent Lucius to France for distraction and I’d organize a raid into the Manor while he would be away. There is always a good reason to explain myself later – the dark artifacts he hides and stores are surely one of them. The lists are another.   
  
As we turn to our left for the fourth time, I begin to wonder if we’re actually walking around in an attempt to make me disoriented. I can barely see around and I lost count of my steps long ago, so I rely on Wibbly who keeps a torch in a tiny hand that’s been obviously beaten quite recently.  
  
“Master Potter can cast a Lumos if he prefers to, Master. Wibbly is old and worthless and makes it hard for Harry Potter to see. Wibbly will iron his hands afterwards, sir.”  
  
I haven’t managed to cast a Lumos since I was seventeen. “No, no. I’m fine, thanks. Don’t do that.”  
  
The portraits on the walls cover their mouths with their hands and whisper my name as we walk. “It’s Harry Potter,” I hear them say. “Heir of the New World,” say some others. The  _Heir_ , really? Is this still going around? Wonders will never cease. There was this article in the Daily Prophet, almost seven months ago, implying that once the New World was created and the war ended, I would try to take over Voldemort’s leadership and get him out of the way. It took a week to calm him down and I was Crucio-ed numerous times in order to “confess” my true intentions. Of course I had nothing of the kind to hide. I barely hide anything from him anymore.  
  
We eventually reach the office and the elf announces my arrival to his Master before he snaps his fingers and disappears. I clear my throat and walk in.  
  
Lucius Malfoy ignores me at first – he always makes a show of being busy while he’s not - carefully reading something at his desk, underlying and keeping notes, the long feather of the quill brushing his face as it moves. He covers the papers with a folder and slowly comes to greet me, smiling.   
  
“Commander Potter.”  
  
I nod. “Lucius.”  
  
He offers me a seat and pours me a drink as he returns to his large office chair. It’s a green armchair with a tall back with little velvet symbols carved into it. My eyes dart to his pens and papers, not for the first time desiring to steal everything and lock myself alone in a room to study whatever he keeps here. He has no right to be Head of the Department. Just like any other coward lurking for power and a place in the upper cycle, he’s doing his best to look strong and clever. I know his weak spots, though.   
  
He’s watching me carefully, caressing the snake-head of his cane with long, delicate fingers.  
  
“How’s Draco?” I ask, straight to the point. I couldn’t have been here for anything but business, and to make my own power clear is a good start. He knows what I’m doing and his face goes slightly paler than usual.  
  
“He’s as good as one can be when fighting in a war, I suppose,” he states. This isn’t a real answer, though.  
  
“You  _suppose_. You haven’t heard from him yet, have you?” This isn’t news, and hadn’t been for a long time. Even the Dark Lord had been considering keeping Draco back, if only to spare himself from Lucius’ whining.  
  
He swallows hard, hating having to admit the truth to me. “No, I haven’t.”  
  
I give him an obviously fake sympathetic look. “No need to worry, Lucius, I’m sure he’s fine. Don’t forget it’s hard to find an owl available in the battlefield; most of them are working all day carrying more than ten different letters at the same time. And even if he does find one, we can’t know if he has still arms to write.” I stare at him for a long minute and he stares back. He’ll break, eventually.  
  
“Mister Potter, I send my owl three times per week to France. If you’d care to give me a leave I would personally travel there and find him.”  
  
I make a show of chuckling lowly. “Yes, of course you would. Just make a visit to the Ministry first. Have you seen the queues out of my office? Do you have any idea how many parents request the very same thing? How many elderlies beg me and offer me money to let them travel and search for their sons and grandsons? They all are desperate, Lucius. You, on the other hand, could have gone into the war with him and would now be able to check on him at all times. Thank God you decided to make yourself useful, staying behind to work in the Ministry.”  
  
Mind games are something Malfoys really adore – Lucius’ face now though suggests that this isn’t funny anymore.  
  
“What do you want?” He spits. Ah. Here we are.  
  
I place my briefcase on his desk and open it, making sure he can’t see the contents from where he sits. “I’ve brought you the plans for the new buildings at Channel islands. I’ve heard the current wings are full.”  
  
“You heard the wings are full,” Lucius repeats. “And where did you hear that from, pray tell, since no one ever came out of the camps, and only I have permission to receive information about the Mudbloods’ whereabouts?”  
  
I haven’t heard it. It’s mathematics, though, since when we first built the camps we had reckoned than no more than ten thousand people would live there. Then the war went on, savage and breathtaking, and the people caught and sent to the islands now surpass two billion. “You are in charge of this, Lucius. Don’t mess it up. Don’t you count the dozens of people you send there every week? The winter is coming harsh this year. They need the buildings done before November comes and we should add some heating facilities too.”  
  
He takes a sip from his glass, probably giving himself some time to phrase what he thinks. “Commander…” Why is it so difficult to just say yes? He knows what I can give to him. “I trust you do understand the Mudbloods are not on a vacation, don’t you? Exile does not cover five star hotels services.”  
  
“ _Exile,”_ I explain calmly, “does cover lack of education, no medical care, and no communication with the rest of the world. It presupposes though people being alive.”  
  
“Believe me, Commander; I have control of the situation.” What kind of control is that when he won’t ever look me in the eyes? My temper rises and I stand up.  
  
“The blood traitors are all concentrated and we’re on letter P with the Muggleborns. What do you think will happen when we finish calling them? We’ll crowd ten or twenty billion people onto tiny islands? We’ll make thirty people sleep in a double bed? Or are we just going to throw them in the sea when the islands are full? If you suggest we do nothing, you’d better forget it.”  
He doesn’t answer, looking troubled for the first time this evening. He’s vulnerable and it’s the moment I was waiting for, so I go on. “Give me the documents, Lucius. I need to see your lists.”  
  
As if he’s just been awakened from a dreamful sleep he gets up too, and regaining his self - control, replies, “I’m afraid that no matter how much I’d like to satisfy your request, this cannot be done, Commander. You see, there is no doubt I trust you with my life and you know that I would certainly die for your will. There is no favor in the world I can deny you… unless it’s against the Dark Lord’s will.”  _Slimy arse-licking hypocrite. I bet you’d kill me right know if you could._  “Unfortunately, as you know and knew all the previous times you asked me the very same thing, our Lord has ordered me to keep the lists private.”  
  
I can bring Draco back, I almost say, but then I bite my tongue. I cannot promise something I can’t do, and there’s a good chance of Draco being dead already. I wonder if he hides a price for this and just waits to push matters a little bit more. We’ll see. “And  _I_ order you to show me.”  
  
Lucius keeps smiling at me. “Commander, please. I would never act against the Dark Lord’s orders. Would you?” He wants me to say yes, and I’m starting to lose my patience. I need to find out where Ron and Hermione are and do something at last. There must be a way to talk to those who are kept in the camps. To create the best circumstances I can for their survival, even if they don’t know it was me.  
  
My glass is still full as I leave it on the desk and close my briefcase. I throw the plans on his lap and turn to the door.  
“Make sure they have a place to sleep without freezing to death in the process, Lucius. Re-build the camps, if you have to.”  
If he gave an answer, I never heard it. The elf awaits for me outside and guides me back to the central hall. I am way too pissed off to count my steps or watch where we’re going. I damn two portraits until I’m out of there and take my time donning my gloves just in front of the stupid dogs – my presence makes them angry and it’s possible that they sense their master’s displeasure with me and that makes them wilder. If I had my magic, they’d be dead now.  
  
As soon as I’m out of the Malfoy grounds I hide behind a tree and use the watch Portkey in my pocket. It makes it easier to look as though I’m Apparating and I don’t think there are people who’d question my magic abilities anyway. I land on the floor of my lounge and take a few deep breaths to shoo away the dizziness of the transport. The door to the meeting office is open and I don’t hear any sounds from upstairs, so I realize that Voldemort must be away again.  
  
It is only then that I notice a short, very confused-looking man waiting for me a few meters away. I draw out my duplicated wand and point it at him.   
  
“Oh no, no. I was just waiting, you – Oh my God, I’m really seeing Harry Potter, aren't I? My wife’s never going to believe this. You are an inspiration to us all.” He looks lost in his thoughts for a while and then comes back to reality, clearing his throat. “Commander, I… I need you to authorize the strategy you suggested a few days ago about Germany.”  
  
I look at him and can’t help but think he looks more stupid than Wormtail used to. “And who the hell are you?” I ask impatiently.  
“The new Major, Sir. My name is George Rayder.” The New Major. Of course, that explains why he looks so dumb. We always pick up the best. He’s so proud of it I almost pity him, positively sure that soon he’ll be dead, too. There is no tactic that will satisfy Voldemort unless everybody dies, and there is no war strategy that could be applied to the real world that man could organize. The face always tells. He passes me the script and I eye it, tired.  
  
“Okay, let’s do it. What have you written there?”  
  
“That we will offer them the chance to surrender, and if they don’t, we march in. It’s what you suggested; I read it in the protocols. I was studying them all night, to be honest.” He expects a bravo he won’t get.  
  
“From now on you won’t write the commands alone.” I retort instead. “I must supervise you at all times, and you will owl nothing unless I’ve signed it.” He nods and I take him to my office to re-write the whole thing. I toy the pack of cigarettes in my cloak pocket and take a look at Voldemort’s bookcases as he seats himself and takes a new scroll.  
  
“Are you writing?”  
  
“I’m ready.”   
  
I’m hasty to get this over with. Our men are weak and foolish and we’re not going to take Germany – we might as well move on to Denmark as we were planning to.  
  
“So. Official Report of the Commander of  _blabla_ Harry Potter to  _blabla_  Battalion. Fill the gaps and write the date too.” He nods, his hand running fast across the yellow paper. “ _It is necessary to improve the skills of our men by all possible means, so that our Army may keep pace with defense measures from Germany. The latest great loss of men will in no doubt cause difficulties in preparing for a next raid so soon, but Ι expect of you to show loyalty and prowess. I officially command the Mission to remain inactive for the time being unless instructed otherwise; on 23 October, as the dawn rises, our Lord and Leader will demand Germany’s compliance, giving a last chance for absolution to their people. Be prepared, servants of England and the New World, for if Germany declares a rebuff and decides to protect its Muggles and their filth – you must defend our Faith and take their land._ Now write something that’ll make them understand that if they lose we’ll hang their heads out of Buckingham. And make it long.”  
  
Needing to smoke, I sigh troubled. Voldemort can’t trust a Malfoy more than he trusts me. And yet he does. “ _Losing this battle is not an option,_ ” I insist. “ _We must be hard in this war. The enemy started the war with its filth in order to destroy us, and thus nothing else matters._ " That’s it. The sick bastard’s going to like that. When the sound of the quill stops I throw the burned fag on the ashtray and seal up the report.  
  
I inform Rayder, “You missed the curfew. If you come across any supervisor on the way, tell them you were in the Riddle House for business and that they’ll be punished if they have you arrested. Do not show them the report under any circumstances. You will owl it directly to France.”  
  
Rayder gasps, clearly taking offense. “I am a Major, sir. I have the right to be out after curfew.”  I sign quickly and dismiss him.  
The moment I hear the door closing, being left alone again, I fall on the couch and massage my temples, mentally exhausted. My eyes water and I can’t tell if it’s the tense of a forthcoming migraine or something else. When was the last time I allowed myself a weak moment of crying, anyway?  _Long ago. Doesn’t matter._ I roll up my left sleeve and trace the small RH I have ruled near the dark mark. Although red and deep, the swelling is almost gone – I remember to re-carve it every two or three weeks, determined to make it a permanent scar someday – like the scar on my forehead, only this will be something that’ll make me smile when I see it.  
  
It’s not a migraine; I miss them. I miss them so much the pain is unbearable. I miss our jokes and our fights, and the days we would wander around the Hogwarts halls and we would argue about all the silly things in the world. I miss Ron’s murmurs in his sleep and his face when I first told him I was in love with Ginny. I miss Luna’s gibberish and her crazy clothes, her long hair that was always beautiful, although she never properly washed it. Sometimes I fail to pretend, I fail to be strong. There are these days, like now, that my mind just sticks there, with them, and I can do nothing but think and think all over again, think about the Weasleys, Hermione, Hagrid, the Creevey brothers, Dean, even poor Ollivander and his dusty shop in Diagon Alley. The first kiss with Ginny. The first kiss with Cho. The first time I went to Hogsmeade, and when I managed to do my first Patronum charm in the Forbidden Forest. The happiness I felt. The warmth.  
  
The first year of the war, in 1998, I wrote multiple letters. I begged on my knees so I could send what I’d written to the camps, just to make sure the prisoners were all right, but Voldemort wouldn’t hear of it. A deal was a deal, he’d say whenever I was bringing it up.  _Isolated, forever._ Needing some comfort, I hug the velvet pillow tightly to my chest and lie back, exhaling deeply. The ceiling has gossamers in every corner even though the elves clean it regularly, and I wonder if there is a particular spider living in the lounge that keeps surviving every time, or if the house is actually so old no cleaning can help it.  
  
It’s a miracle we keep it decent for the meetings and the occasional parties – were we living alone, Voldemort and I, our neglect would have torn out the building to pieces. His room is a restricted area to me, as expected, but I’ve heard multiple times the elves swear when they have to go in there. I bet he never tucks his possessions and has maps and battle calendars all over the place, dust coiling around of everything and only a few candles to give light to the mess. My room isn’t doing any better either. I don’t let the elves inside unless it is really necessary, since they keep moving my clothes and potions around and fill my bath cabinet with exotic shampoos I’m never going to use.  
  
I wonder what they would do if I were to give them clothes someday. Most likely Voldemort would kill them before they had a chance to leave the room, afraid of how much they’ve heard and seen these past years. I know too much too – he’d never let me go away from him and I’d be doomed if I betrayed him, taking down with me everybody else too. Why does he trust Lucius? What am I doing wrong? The man has proved more than twice in the past that he’d step back to save his own skin at any time if events turned out to be against his precious well-being.  
  
I could work for the camps better than he does. I’d do my best – I’d be useful – and this is the weakness the Dark Lord hates about me, this is what he can’t stand. That he has given me everything- power, money, followers to adore me and look after my needs – and yet what I care about most is the people I love, the people that are unable to give anything to me other than a reminder of my loneliness and my failures. People that are nothing more than memories to my life. People that are kept apart from the world and from each other, sleeping out in the cold and working hard to build gated dormitories that could be built with magic within seconds. It’s just another kind of torture, to fulfill the amusement of their guards; to continue being humiliated for as long as their arrest goes on.  
  
Ron is probably still with his parents and brothers, I hope, but it would be impossible to contact Hermione if she’s in the women’s wings. I wonder how she copes with this new situation – what she thinks of me now and if she has any way to learn the news about Europe; if she has forgiven me or if she wishes we could have just died in the Shrieking Shack before this nightmare begun. I think of George, having to endure this torment without his twin, and professor McGonagall, who was always focused on her schedule and taught us the basics to begin our wizarding life, and how she would transform into a cat and wander to the Quidditch fields when she wanted to get away from it all. Then, the way she looked at me for the last time, anger and shocked betrayal in her eyes, as the Death Eaters caught her arms behind her back, insulted her, spat on her face, tore her hat to pieces and broke her beautiful wand in front of her.  
  
I need to see the lists with the names. I need to know who lives with whom, if they can contact each other, how they are separated into groups and who has been sent there these last three years. I know there must still be a resistance somewhere. They can’t have concentrated everyone yet – but whoever the Ministry arrests passes from Lucius before is sent away. It’s Lucius who writes down and stores everything: names, birth dates, camps and wings.  
  
Although all the Muggles I have ever known must be already dead, - and I don’t even have the courage to think of Aunt Petunia and Dudley right now - I know the Muggleborns and the rest of the Blood Traitors are there and need my help. I need to see the condition they live in. What could I ever write to Ron? I laugh into my palms at even the idea of it. What could I ever say to make it better?  _You are exiled, Ron, you suffer and you’ve good chances to be cold or sick, you’re missing your mother and your sister and you hate your life, because I decided I couldn’t let you die. You are being guarded by people I sent to your home to destroy the poor strands of a living your family was ever able to create._  
  
You suffer because I decided to keep you all alive. Because I still hope that someday I’ll find a way to kill Voldemort and free you, to make it all end. Then I will marry Ginny as I once promised her, and we’ll have many kids and we’ll call them all Ron if you want, if that’s what it takes for you to forgive me. And you’ll marry Hermione and you’ll have another ten Rons and we’ll grow them up together in a large house with a Quidditch pitch in the backyard. Just stay strong, Ron. Stay strong for me. Stay strong for the future we were dreaming of as kids in the Gryffindor Tower when everybody else was sleeping.  
  
What would he say? Thank you very much? He works day and night and cannot even request to see or write to his family. Maybe he hasn’t seen Hermione since the last time I saw her too. I sleep in a double bed in a chamber with a fireplace. There is no excuse for what I’ve done.  
  
I light a cigarette and get up to owl Voldemort. He’ll make the public announcement for Germany tomorrow, so I might as well study my part perfectly.


	4. Chapter 4

In October 2001 the Dark Lord was stirring up tension with Germany _,_   _and he was prepared to fabricate whatever was needed as a pretext to invade. When Potter's_   _false_   _report_ _caused the most unexpected loss of servants we would have ever_   _anticipated_ _, the Americans declared that if we didn't step back and put a voluntarily end to the Voldemortian Dictatorship they would have to stop us themselves. Even then, we had laughed at it. America had no power over Europe. No one could stop us._  
  
 _When this news came by, Voldemort said to me: "If there's the slightest provocation, I shall shatter America without warning into so many pieces that there will be nothing left to pick up." Much of what is known about the Potter Incident, as History chose to name it, comes from the affidavit of Pius Thicknesse, at the American Trials. In his testimony, he stated that Harry Potter had no real experience or wise strategic intentions, and should have been kept far away from the military and the_   _war_ _in general._  
  
" _He was a skinny child, like every young man was in our days. Confused, afraid of a future he could not control even if he so much desired to, and very well taught of lying, apparently from Voldemort himself. He showed us what we wanted to see so we would feel safe. He was a known friend of the Ministry, was working hard, and to be honest, was totally harmless for the Empire. If Harry Potter was a spy, transferring information to the Americans? If he organized the Incident to Germany behind our backs for distraction? No, I don't think so. You would be the first to know anyway, wouldn't you? But no, no. Harry Potter was loyal. For that, I am sure."_  
  
 _For us, the Death Eaters, there were only two possibilities: either we remained faithful to the Dark Lord_ _,_   _or we came under the thumb of the_   _camps_   _ourselves. I could not let the latter occur in any case; my wife and son were bounded to my fate and_ _shared_   _it as theirs too. So, I told myself that we were a force. Even after the accident, even if we were defeated and even if we were small. I believed that a well-organized group could still conquer a strong enemy. That, if we stuck close together and kept proselyting and bringing in new people to our Military, we would be victorious over the enemies. There was a meeting right after the Potter Incident - there was the last time I saw Harry Potter in a good mental condition. His downfall, as we had all noticed, was soon to begin._  
  


_"Memories of the Blood Purge War", Lucius Malfoy - 2030 (page 51)_

                       ************************************************************************************************************************

  
"There are two different kinds of speakers," I inform the backstage mirror, right under the platform's rostrum. "Those who are reasoning, and those who… Uhm…" Those who what? Damn it. I unfold the crumpled paper I’m squeezing in my hand and read it again.  _There are two fundamentally different kinds of speakers: those who use reasoning, and those who speak from the heart._  Those who speak from the heart. Those who speak from the heart. "And those who speak from the heart."  
  
My hair's condition is almost decent and I'm dressed in my officer's costume, the black-silver Death Eater cloak covering my shoulders, sewed with expensive crest badges of the British Empire. Voldemort isn't here, and he rarely lets me know where he is before our speeches, so anxiety builds up inside me as the minutes pass and he doesn't appear. I can't organize everything myself. He's giving me too many responsibilities. Public speeches are always a threat our enemies adore, and might turn out to be good opportunities for resistance groups to build a trap against us – it is indeed thoughtful of Voldemort to protect himself by not being where he's supposed to be when everybody could reach and find him. Protecting me as well is not an essential priority, I suppose.  
  
"Commander, two minutes," a female voice says out of the door. I throw the paper to the trash bin and repeat the beginning one more time with my eyes closed, like I would do before a History of Magic examination. With no time to memorize anything else, my only hope is that Voldemort will show up in time and I won't have to say his part as well. God, this shit always makes me nervous. Pureblood families that were not accused of 'betraying their race' are now residents of England. What if some of them are in the crowd too? Luna's father was never arrested, and Slughorn either. What if old classmates of mine see me today? In Voldemort's right side, let alone.  _Yeah, as if they need to see you face to face to know what you are and what you do. You're stupid, Harry Potter._  
  
I search my pockets for cigars – I desperately need to smoke one now, just to cast off the best part of the tension, but I know it's too dangerous to risk doing it here. I, more than anyone, cannot be seen with anything the New Constitution has prohibited. I'm expected to be a role model for the citizens, and furthermore this is my last pack until the end of the week. It can't have more than five or six cigars left, I figure toying the pack. Fuck week. They're not enough to make it through the day.  
  
I started smoking a few months after moving in to the Riddle House; I made the decision almost unconsciously, during an unbearable lonely and silent night. I couldn't sleep, (a phenomenon very usual for those days) so I was ready to go downstairs to the kitchen, planning to kill my thoughts with eating or drinking. Then, I had heard the house elves lowly chatting about an underground apothecary that was selling banned products in Knockturn Alley. The place was accessible only after midnight, and only from those who knew the key word, and the elves fancied exchanging old objects for food there. I decided to step out of my hiding place and approach them. The elves were terrified to have been caught talking about it; they promised me they'd sew their mouths and burn their tongues, but instead of punishing them, I requested to know what kind of products they could find me.  
  
It was my first year as a Commander for the Death Eater Military. I had no one to talk to and nothing to do, except followVoldemort around and obey his orders. In addition, I was being punished for everything. I was spending most of my time alone and I wasn't allowed to discuss even the simplest things with our guests without Voldemort's supervision. Full of suspicions, he was treating me like a dangerous virus, and I knew he was considering killing me every moment we spent together. I had to stay at his side. I had to prove myself useful and be the catalyst to every upcoming trouble, in order to keep my place next to him. Even the elves weren't allowed to talk to me, and they'd burn my food on purpose. And the house had no portraits or even talking mirrors to exchange a word. I was completely, horribly lonely, and I was sleeping a wall away from my parents' murderer. He knew about anything I did, everything I said. I had nothing.  
  
Then I knew it. I was either going to do something for myself, anything, to just remind myself I'm not a slave, or another soulless servant , or else I would go crazy.  
  
So I began giving weekly some gold to Hokey, the youngest elf, to flee at nights and bring me a pack or two of mugglecigarettes. It was a precious ritual, back then, to lock myself in the bathroom and smoke alone, enjoying my little,insignificant revolution. To have for the first time since the Hogwarts years a very personal secret to keep, something only I knew, something not even Voldemort could figure or take away from me. It was essential for me to have a secret to keep. To prove to myself I'm not the obedient Death Eater I had to pretend to be. My first cigar was accompanied with a silent oath to never forget my roots. No matter what they'd do to me, I wouldn't be like them. An insignificant muggle habit like smoking was nothing as important to make me feel a rebel against the Pureblood Ideology I was supposed to be supporting, as well as the things I was forced to do during the war, but it did. It kept me strong, my first and only step to an independence no one could touch. Something to remind me I'm not Voldemort's. I'm no one's.  
  
The woman knocks on the door again and yells, "Commander, it's time! Our Lord is waiting!"  
  
So here we are. I clear my throat several times, then I check myself the mirror again and get out, ascending to the high wooden podium. The mass exceeds all expectations – such a large crowd hasn't appeared in a speech since we took England. Groups of people are still arriving, many of them carrying banners and casting jubilant spells to the air. They are of massive proportions. Some carrying excited toddlers on their shoulders and some wear British flags around their necks, as capes.   
  
Voldemort is already there, dressed in an expensive black cloak too, waiting for me at the front of the podium and smiling proudly as he clutches my shoulder to greet me.  
  
"You're late," his voice is calm, and for those who can't hear us he could might as well be saying "Hello".  
  
"I'm not," I smile back. The cheers of the crowd grow louder as they see me there too, and then small snowflakes begin to fall from the sky, the wind growing colder, announcing the beginning of a savage, forthcoming winter. There are no heat charms casted, but no one seems to care. Their devotion makes Voldemort's red eyes sparkle.  
  
"Ready, Harry?"  
  
I nod, and then I turn to the public, raising up my hands to draw the people's attention. The cheers and shouts momentary subside and I press the duplicate of my wand to my throat, pretending to cast the Sonorus spell as Voldemort casts it for me wordlessly. So, I guess it's time. Right.  
  
"There are two fundamentally different kinds of speakers." Silence. I clear my throat. "Those who use reasoning… and those who speak from the heart. They reach two different sorts of people, those who understand through reason, and those who understand through the heart. Speakers who aim for the reason are generally found in parliaments - those who speak from the heart speak to the people. Today's topic could've been discussed behind the closed Ministry's doors, discretely. It isn't something concerning you or your families, and you already know better than to feel unsafe – our nation protects, and will be protecting, you and your loved ones by all costs. We decided to address our citizens today though, openly and honestly, having absolutely nothing to hide from you, as we do believe that when our Nation is threatened, when a small group of morally infected wizards might cause a menace to our future, our safety, our children – then you all deserve to know."  
  
I forgot a couple of lines, I realize, but if I say them now they won't make sense. The people listen to me, hypnotized, exchanging some worrying murmurs. I tug at my sweaty sleeves with my fingers and keep on talking from where I left it.  
  
"Germany has announced that does not agree to be a part of the New World under any circumstances, viewing our aim as to create a Kingdom for England to rule over. Yet, the Germans are being mistaken; our idea is far from England and its occupations. The idea – and do not forget this - is  _Blood_. It is the Blood that millions admired as they fought for England in the Great War; the Blood that they saw in their mind's eyes as the pure and clear root of a future civilization; the Blood running through their veins as they experience situations of struggle, of sorrow, of the deaths of English men; of the idea of Blood for which it is worthy to live and die."  
  
The blind, stupid fools are clapping and cheering. What good did I say? In what way did they derive any hopes or happiness from my words? How can they be so zealous and proud of what we're foisting upon them to believe? They should climb up to the podium and eat our flesh alive.  
  
"However, I assure you that this is not to worry. Germany will surrender today, and will comply with our values. Otherwise, we will take it nevertheless and all the remaining filthy societies of the muggle race left will be exiled far away from Europe."  
  
I finish by bowing my head lightly and step back. Meanwhile, Voldemort walks forward and continues this theatre of the absurd for a good fifteen minutes more, repeating pretty much the same things over and over again, making sure it will become clear that we will win no matter what, as if anyone gives a damn about it. If he had ignored Germany he’d have the world now, but he seems to have stuck to his stubbornness with this particular country, apparently determined to see all of his people dying there.  
At last, his nonsense reaches an end.  
  
"If they choose to fight, it is fine with us. We have wanted that fight for a long time; there is no room in the world for themuggles anymore. Danger or safety; war or peace; freedom or slavery; nuclear weapons, radiation, unhealthy technology, ormagic. The question for all of us is one: muggles or wizards - one of us must go."  
  
We are praised and acclaimed once again, as we finish the most uninteresting speech of the year and step back. The snow is now falling more forcefully on us, and we shake some hands with the arseholes of the press before we can eventually apparate back home.  
  
While stepping down from the podium, a few reporters gather around to ask questions. Saying anything impressing to them does not due these days – they are being paid from the Ministry to write always the best, and know well that if they don't, they won't find their way home the next day. Skeeter is not allowed from the Prophet to participate in such events as their employee; she is too dumb to even transfer to paper Voldemort's brilliant ideas, I suppose. I say what I must and allow some photographs to be taken. Voldemort poses seriously with his guards for a few more and the farce is over.  
  
By the time we come back to the Riddle House, the news is travelling all over the world; it is quite positive that the onslaught in Germany must have already begun. After a "Well done, Harry Potter" I receive from Voldemort upon arriving, I run to my room and close the curtains, falling to a deep day sleep, not even bothering to undress or take off my glasses. It's the kind of sleep I wake up from with headache and watering eyes.  
  
This time though, I am awakened by Voldemort's swearing and yelling, while the whole building is magically vibrating and quaking from his rage. I stand up realizing, number one, that I slept with my glasses on and my temple is burning bloodshot, and number two, Hokey watching me, afraid, from the far end of the room, his finger still in front of his mouth in an attempt to make me stay quiet and listen to him. He jumps forward and climbs to the bed, trembling and making an unnecessary big deal of something, moving his small hands up and down.  
  
"Master is angry, oh so angry! Hokey shouldn't say this, oh, Master demands Harry Potter to go downstairs immediately, Master is very angry! Hokey doesn't want to go downstairs, but Harry Potter is expected to-"  
  
A distant shriek of wrath pierces my ears and the chandeliers shake, dust and plaster detritus falling from the ceiling on my head. I take the mock up wand out and put my cloak on quickly.  
  
"Hokey, speak. What's happening?"  
  
"Master is angry, so angry! Oh, Hokey will-"  
  
"You've already said that. Why's he angry?" I hide my cigars under the mattress and wear my shoes.  
  
Yet, Hokey keeps babbling and I shove him aside to run to the meeting hall.  
  
The door is closed and I notice the paint frames in the living room have been dropped off, their panes broken to shivers. I open the door cautiously and stoop down just in time to dodge a black dossier thrown directly in my face. Oh boy.  
  
Voldemort strides closer and I fall on my knees, kissing the hem of his robe. "My Lord."  
  
A hand grabs my hair and forces my face up, the Elder wand only a few inches from my throat. What did I do wrong? Everybody's here, and no one seems happy to see me either. Lucius, Yaxley, Antonin, John, and some Ministry workers are present as well. "You…" Voldemort hisses like a dying snake in a cage, "You are the most stupid…" the wand now digging into my skin, "arrogant…" red sparkles pinching me, "frivolous, unworthy shit I have ever met. Give me one reason to keep you alive. ONE, SINGLE REASON!"  
  
My hand still clutching his robe, I control my trembling and stare back at him. What's the meaning of all this? What's happening?  
  
"My Lord, I don't understand. How did I fail you?"  
  
He leaves my head and walks back to the table as I get up follow behind him. Lucius smiles sardonically and I walk past him, shoving him away with my shoulder.  _Fuck you._  
  
Voldemort slides over the table an opened envelope with my seal on it.  
  
"For your information, the west side of Germany surrendered as you were taking a  _nap_. Is that good news to you, Harry Potter?"  
  
Surrendered. So, more people have to be sent in the camps. More people tortured and imprisoned accused of existing. I nod, confused of what he expects to hear. "Yes, my Lord. It is."  
  
"You sent the fifth battalion to fight. How many men did it have?"  
  
I roll my eyes, thinking. "Almost twelve thousand, my Lord. Did we have losses?"  
  
He laughs; a laugh low, muffled, which grows louder as the seconds pass until the walls shake again and the lights tremble like candlelight in the wind. He drops his head back, the laughing altering to a maniac shout and he stops abruptly, waving his wand to hover the letter at my face.  
  
"Three thousand men… survived. The rest nine thousands died, you untrustworthy scum, not fighting, but bleeding to death, abandoned from their own fellows. Explain this to me, Harry. Explain it to their families. Shall I bring you quill and ink to begin?"   
  
My fingers shaking, I take hold of the envelope. I don't understand. EMMERGENCY WAR ORDER, it says. I pull out the scroll and observe it. It's the one Rayder wrote.  
  
Ignoring all the eyes of the room locked at me, I read silently:  
  
 _Official Report of Harry Potter, Commander of the British Army_  
  
 _In the presence of the Major-in-Charge George Rayder_  
  
 _To the fifth Battalion at France, on 22 October 2001_  
  
 _It is necessary to improve the skills of our men by all possible means, so that our Army may keep pace with defense measures from Germany. The latest great loss of men will in no doubt cause difficulties in preparing for a next raid so soon, but_ _Ι_ _expect of you to show loyalty and prowess. I, Harry James Potter, officially command the Mission in France to remain inactive for the time being unless instructed otherwise; on 23 October, as the dawn rises, our Lord and Leader will demand Germany's compliance, giving a last chance for absolution to their people. Be prepared, servants of England and the New World, for if Germany declares a rebuff and decides to protect its_   _muggles_   _and their filth – you must defend our_   _faith_   _and take their land._  
  
 _Fight alone, with your magic, for your magic. Do not rescue any men; do not take them along; and do not stay back to carry the damaged and the wounded with you putting in danger your own lives. After the battle is over and the German land belongs to you, burn their towns and villages, destroy their houses, enjoy their wives, murder their children and drink their alcohol. Steal their gold and bring it to our Lord. Losing this battle is not an option. Weather conditions and ambushes of the enemy are of no consequence. Concern yourselves only with your own safety and with efforts to achieve additional successes as soon as possible._  
  
 _We must be hard in this war. The enemy started it with its filth in order to destroy us, and thus nothing else matters._  
  
 _Written and authorized by Commander Harry James Potter_  
  
No, no no no  _no._ I finish reading it and then I read it again. My heart is racing. I attempt to get my mind think straight. What the hell did he do? Why? My own words come back to me:  _Now write something that'll make them understand that if they lose we'll hang their heads out of Buckingham. And make it long._  FUCK. Clutching the letter tight to my hands I look up at Voldemort, startled. My mouth is gaping open as I’m trying to put my chaotic thoughts into words. I'll kill Rayder. Voldemort raises his wand and the only thing I manage to say is "I swear to God-" before the Cruciatus hits me and I fall to the floor, screaming as my bones catch fire and rip away from my muscles. I sob, twitching on the floor, my eyes rolling back in my head. I'm not sure how long it goes on, but it stops almost as suddenly as it started. My muscles spasm several more times and I stay down, my head resting on the floor, mindlessly trying to push myself back up into a kneeling position.  
  
Dizzy and lost, I try again. "I swear to God, my Lord, you must believe me. I didn't write such a thing. I'd never order the soldiers to…" To rape and murder innocent people. "To fight alone and ignore the wounded ones."  
  
Voldemort approaches me and his wand’s tip presses against my cheek as he draws back his lips, outraged. “Nine thousands of my loyal men died in a single battle, because you forbade them to look back. Half of my men were dying while the rest of them were drinking beer and fucking mudblood girls.”  
  
Why did this happen? How? What have I done? Still on the floor, I beg, "My Lord, bring the Major here, he'll confess the truth – he must - I swear to you. I told him exactly what to write but he disobeyed. He put words I never said in my mouth. I had no idea.”  
  
"Crucio!" The earth shatters under my feet and I find myself once again melting as bones and skin tear apart from each other. The pain is so intense, so all-consuming, that I no longer know where I am. White-hot knives pierce every inch of my skin, my head surely going to burst with pain; I scream more loudly than I'd ever screamed in my life. My scream is all I can hear. The torture stops again and I'm incapable of even blinking, my hands completely numb on my sides as I rest my face on the cold floor.  
  
Very slowly, as if trying to walk for the first time after years of resting, I stumble to my knees and wait for the dizziness to go away; then I get hold of the table foot and pull myself with both hands to stand up. Voldemort is waiting; I keep my stare down and unclench the wrinkled envelop, realizing the thin paper left small red cuts on my palm. Hesitantly, I leave it back onthe table.  
  
"The Major disobeyed me, desiring to make a remindful impression. If you-"  
  
"Rayder is already dead. Thank no one but me that you're not."  
  
"Please… my Lord, forgive me." I don't dare to say anything else.  
  
I don't know what I'm expecting.  _Okay, Harry, I forgive you. Here, have a cuppa and relax._  He seems to be thinking of what to do with me as well. He can't sack me. England depends on me as much as on him and he knows it.  
  
"Get out of my sight, Harry Potter. We will discuss this alone."  
  
Afraid of another outburst, I nod, bow, and run out of the room, humiliation burning my face along with the aftermath of the Cruciatus. Lucius grabs my arm the moment I touch the door knob and hands me over the Prophet along with a pack of some French and Polish newspapers. If this is an attempt to help me be prepared by knowing the details of the situation, it is not out of sympathy. The bastard knows it'll pain me to see what I've done. He saw Voldemort torturing me. They all saw him. They're not going to trust me ever again.  
  
Returning to my room, I find a hot milk from Hokey and a small bottle labeled as  _Painkiller._  Rubbing my aching head I take a look at the newspapers.  
  
The battle was tremendous. No, not battle; it was genocide. Photographs of the invasion are printed on every front page; I reckon the copies I hold are most likely to be published tomorrow. The milk doesn't help and painkillers make me numb and slow, so I just lay back. With my feet still on the ground, I take off my glasses. I can't read anything right now. Voldemort's right; it's my fault. Everything is my fault. What was I thinking, sealing up a report I didn't check first? The Germans would never bow to us with their minister murdered a few days before an arrangement meeting. Of course they'd fight. And of course they'd lose. And know not only their men are dead, but there were rapes too. And innocent children watching before they would be killed too.  
  
I should have killed Voldemort when I had the chance. I should have cast the killing curse and blown up his head to pieces. I gaze around. The papers are still opened on the pillows besides me: children lay dead in ruins all over Germany, splayed in two, or barely breathing behind the corpses of their brothers and sisters. Naked women, abused, humiliated, searching for their children, screaming and crawling to avoid being hit by the curses of our men.  
  
It was my plan. My fucking plan. I put my sign at it and send it to be put into action. There shouldn't be losses. There shouldn't be tortures and burned villages. We wanted to take over the country, not destroy it. How could our men dare to keep captives for their fun? How could they take pleasure from killing? This is war, not a playground for sadists. They can't kill for enjoyment. They simply can't. I'd never permit such a thing.  _My fault. My fault._  I don't even know how many innocent people were tortured. The Daily Prophet shares a photographical document of an execution – sixty women in the raw, all of them killed with the Killing Curse.  _I_  did that. I am a murderer.  _If Germany declares a rebuff and decides to protect its_ _muggles_ _and their filth – you must defend our_   _faith_   _and take their land._  How stupid. They should have bowed.  
  
I search the drawers for cigarettes and find none. Where the fuck are they? If this is Hokey's job again to make me quit I'll fucking make him iron his cock. He's an elf, for god's sake. He won't tell me what to do. "Hokey! Ho-" Oh. Right. Under the mattress. I pull it up and find the pack, untouched as I left it, only a bit deformed from the heavy pressure. I light one and lieon the bed again.  
  
When we were caught in the Shrieking Shack, spying on Snape and Voldemort, Snape practically pleading to go and search for me, so he could bring me to his master, I fought. I really fought. I did everything I could to kill Voldemort, using every spell I knew, Snape, Hermione, and Ron standing aside, as he were dueling for our lives. Voldemort was stronger than me, with curses I didn't know and the Elder wand, fighting against a single person in a small room, every advantage was on his side. He won. And as I laid there, on the old floor of the shack where Remus was laying and rolling around at the fool moon, I knew this was the end. Disarmed and defeated, blood running from a deep cut on my head and another one on my ribs, with the elder wand pinching on my throat, there was nothing I could do to him. Nothing. I should have stuck to that belief, I guiltily think sometimes. I should have done nothing. But as I heard the hoarse " _Avada…"_  coming out of Voldemort's mouth, I stopped him.  
  
"Wait! I… let me talk to you," I had pleaded, and offered him what he wanted most.  
  
"You once asked me to follow you, when I was eleven. Do you remember?" It had started with Quirell, but in the Chamber of Secrets it was obvious that he was curious of me. He had spent a whole year talking to Ginny, a pre-pubescent girl of no interest to him, just to study me. To learn more of me. To understand why I didn't die when I should have, while everybody else in my place would. My power combined with his would be the most powerful weapon a wizard could have. He knew then. And he still did now.  
  
"We could conquer the world together. Those who remain against you call me their saviour, and hope that someday I'll kill you. If you kill me they'll never stop fighting you. They'll resist you with all their might and you know there is nothing harder to fight than hope. Every wizard in the world knows my name, but even if you kill me I'll be stronger than you, I'll always be stronger than you, because your name brings them fear, while mine brings them inspiration. What would  _you_  follow, Tom? Fear? No, never. And they won't either. They'll build up a resistance or a – another Dumbledore's Army," I was fighting hard not to faint from the blood loss but I had to stay strong. Strong enough to say what I had to, anyway.  
  
Voldemort had laughed. You believe your little friends have any power against me? I won, Harry Potter."  
  
He had pointed his wand at me again and I had to think fast. If I died, he'd killed them all. He'd start from Ron and Hermione, a toy-threat for him, disarmed as well, standingonly a few meters away from him. Then he'd go off to Hogwarts. No one would survive. The news of my death would rip off every strength in their souls, every wish to keep fighting. So in a sacrifice I always felt there'd come the day to make, I said the worst thing I ever imagined saying, even in my worst nightmares.  
  
"Imagine if I swore loyalty to you. Imagine if I claimed to the public that I'm at your side now and I will remain your servant for as long as I live. I'll play along and we'll both win. You know I'm their last hope, Tom. If I die, they'll make a legend out of me. You won't be the adored one; I'll be, again, instead of you. It'll never be you. But if I follow you, if I suggest to them they do the same, they'll have no one to turn to, no one to help them or to give them this inspiration a resistance needs. Europe will bow to you, and there won't be sides anymore. It will be just you."  
  
In the years that have passed since then, and in the years to come, I will never forget that instant glimmer in his blood red eyes. That spark of madness as he pressed his wand again to my throat, unsure if he should believe what he was hearing. Still, it was what he always wanted to hear from me. He couldn't deny this.  
  
"You're offering me everything in exchange for your life," he clarified.  
  
Snape was watching, focused, the line between his eyebrows deep and unmoving, his whole expression as impenetrable as always. Ron was lying unconscious in the far side of the room, after having hit his head on the wall by some spell; Hermione was shaking her head desperately with frantic movements, begging me silently behind Voldemort's back to stop what I was going to do. I had ignored her. "I'm offering you everything," I was in need of a hospital, I realized as I held my bleeding ribs tighter, "In exchange of the lives of muggles. Exile them, if you must - or send them away where they can't bother you or your Empire. Do what you want to your world. Clear it from those you despise. But you don't have to kill them."  
  
"But I  _will_ ," he had announced proudly."Muggles and Muggleborns and blood traitors too."  
  
"You need me, Tom. They believe in me more than they believe in you," I repeated, this time with a steadier voice. Anger lit into his eyes and I knew I had him. "Let them live. You can have your New World. And no one will bow to you out of fear. They will bow out of respect."  
  
It was the last thing that made it, I think. He was listening, staying quiet and in deep thinking, as he considered what I was offering. The minutes passed and no one seemed to dare move. Even that traitor, Snape, was looking at me as if I had betrayed him personally, for some reason.  
  
At last, he replied. "You can do nothing for the filthy muggles you so adore. But – if I decide to spare the muggleborns and the blood traitors for your sake, you must understand that they will live isolated, forever."  
  
They will live. That was the only thing that mattered. "And you, Harry Potter, will be always by my side, swearing loyalty to me, showing to the world the path to follow. And the moment you break your promise, I kill them all."  
  
I had no time to rethink it or work out the contents of this promise, or even mourn for my future to come. Impatient out of fear I might change my mind, I had nodded  _yes_. Voldemort had reached for my bloodied hand and grabbed it. "It's a deal, Harry Potter." It was when the blood loss kicked in, and with my hand in his, I lost consciousness.  
  
  
I never saw my friends again, and we started building the working camps shortly after. Millions of people were concentrated and sent there, left to die or to survive. I moved into Voldemort's house and started calling him the Dark Lord. This was the most difficult part. When we were alone, I had to keep myself from killing him or at least punching him on his ugly snake –like  face. I was given expensive clothes and treated with a respect I never imagined. During our campaigns, I would attend political parties and meet rich people who would offer donations for the purpose of our war. I had to convince them to give even more, no matter how much they offered, and explain to them the  _Ideology_  I was supposed to follow and support. It wasn't that long ago, but I feel old as I look back. I was merely a child of seventeen, trying to sort out my feelings and live completely alone. I was isolated too.  
  
Muggles were being killed in the streets every day, and there were more to come. Wizards would visit me in my office, or on my way home, and would beg me to save friends of them from their doom. They were giving me small pieces of paper with names, always repeating the same thins.  _I'll do everything, I swear, I'll owe you Commander, spare them, please, they are friends of my daughters, they are family, they are past loves._  I could do nothing for them. I watched all our battles from the safe distance of the Riddle House and mourned silently every time, carving again and again the initials RH on my forearm, every nick a punishment for my disability to save them all.  
  
 _I saved the_   _muggleborns_ _._  It was the best I could have done. After my deal with Voldemort I was transferred to saint Mungo, and a nurse informed me a few days later that Voldemort announced a suspension of his plans for the time being. He visited me as soon as he learned I had woken up, and after locking the door behind him and ordering his guards to prevent the nurses from coming in, he cast a silent curse on me which did something to my magic. I never learned the origins of this curse, and I know he can't have stolen my magic nor deactivated it, but it just – it just stopped working, and none of the books I found helped me learn more about this kind of restriction. I was given a fake wand to carry around in public, and everywhere I go I am being spied on by the Ministry. I'm not free, and no one is, and we are at war. A dictator with mythical powers against the poor army of muggles. Our deal will break the moment I turn against him. I have no choice but to be loyal.  
  
I organize his meetings. I tell the presidents of the world where and when to find him. I claimed in front of the whole England that I will serve my  _Lord_  and they should follow that path as well. Everyone I knew in the United Kingdom is not here anymore. In front of the public, we laugh with Voldemort, shake hands, and pretend to be friends. I pretend and swallow my self-disgust as well as I can, and even have become good at it. We put our ideas at the table and discuss them together. My ideas are better than his, and most times he knows it. This disaster that happened today is an exception - something I've no idea how to cover up. In the eyes of everyone who ever knew me and trusted me, I am a scum. A traitor. I keep doing what I must, though; I play along.  
  
How many people did die today because of me?  
  
The door opens and I throw the cigar butt on the other side of the bed, panicked. I stand up immediately, only to remember I should actually fall on my knees. I do so and keep my head lowered, not daring come face to face with his rage again. "My Lord."  
  
As it seems though, this is not my lucky day,  _"Crucio!"_  My body is already too hurt to experience this pain as anew; the previous torture comes back again and combines itself with the new curse, making my lungs ache as if they're ready to break, as if all the oxygen is sucked off me while I knife is digging itself into my skull. My screams are so loud that when the curse stops my vision is blurred and my ears ring loudly. I whimper on his feet, repentant. It's no wonder they think I'm a scum. The image I must make now is worse than everything I would even want to see myself into.  
  
"The next time you sing a report,  _read it_ _,_ _"_  he shouts.  
  
"Forgive me, my Lord."  
  
"Cru-"  
  
"No, please!"  _Why are you so weak goddamn you? Why can't you even take the torture you deserve?_  
  
Abruptly changing his attitude, Voldemort lowers himself to the ground and caresses my hair, as if to sooth the pain away. I don't move, but just touch his shoe as I expect the next torture. His voice is softer, like a whisper, and more dangerous than any other time we've been alone. "You do not mourn my soldiers. You do not mourn my loyal Death Eaters. You mourn the worms."  
  
I try to speak back as he straightens his back again, desperate to defend myself in any way. I know he's telling the truth and I can't pretend to not care for the muggles that we killed. That  _I_  killed. He knows the reason I obey him. He knows I'll never be really his. Needing to calm down, I press my chest in an attempt to bring my breathing back to normal, watching spots of blood falling on the floor from my nose. What he says next is not what I expect to hear.  
  
"You do remember Severus, don't you?" My blood freezes and I look up confused. Of course I remember the fucking bastard, although I hoped I'd never hear his name again. How could I ever forget Snape? "He's been asking of me to find someone to help him with his potions batches. He's been a little… pressing with this particular request lately, so I promised him you will pay a visit tonight, if you're not too busy. I've linked the lounge Floo to his home, so you don't need to use the Portkey. Which means you will give it back to me now."  
  
This must be a joke, he – no. He's lying. I'm the Commander. He can't downgrade me to a potion assistant. That's ridiculous. I must be useful. I must be in his inner cycle at all times. He can't do this to me. I take the watch out of my pocket and hand it over to him. Snape's going to laugh his arse off for good if he sees me brewing fucking potions instead of being in the Ministry. Furthermore, brewing for the Military is the only thing he does for the Empire all these years – can't he manage to do even that by himself? Not having any other choice and afraid of yet another curse, I bow my head condescendingly.  
  
"As you wish, my Lord."  
  
Voldemort smiles, satisfied, and walks away.


	5. Chapter 5

_It was when Severus Snape, the Dark Lord's personal Potion Maker, former professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, asked for Harry Potter, that everything changed. Our loss of men was great and the war had to go on, but with the hospitals full of Englishmen dying, we had no infantry and no time. The events unfolded as one should have expected; Harry Potter was too young to control an army, and too reckless to do it right. Our second attempt to invade Germany turned out to be our sorest mistake, costing us more in the long run than any strategist would have anticipated back in those days._   
  
_Thus, the Dark Lord remained blind. Commanding the riches of the world, having gigantic living space at his disposal, in a Europe with altogether hardly one inhabitant per square kilometre, in a Europe so blessed by nature, so free, so beautiful, he saw no reason to be concerned or cautious. Millions of people had to pass from my office and be sent to the Islands so we could have these benefits. Of course, that wasn't important – we had defeated the greater poverty of the world and the population of pureblood wizards was increasing every year thanks to our efforts. We were the saviours of our Nation. That's what we'd tell ourselves. But a Europe which was a paradise for a few, was nothing but continuous misery for many, that is, for the hiding masses staying in the ghettoes. Misery in nourishment, misery in clothing, misery particularly in housing; misery in security of income, and in the entire social legislation. It is intriguing for one to notice, how none of this would touch a man's heart, when he considers the next door neighbors less than human, less than worth living mammals._   
  
_I recall an old, blind man, in the crowd to be sent in the Orkneys in lately 2001, begging for water. I had casted the Cruciatus curse on him to force him shut his mouth, and when he had touched my hand in a gesture of seeking help I had backed up disgusted. He then said to me, confident, "After this war, after your victory, your foolish lord will have to tackle social problems; you will have to care for the wide masses. You will have to face the mourning, the sad, angry people you call your throng. They will see the truth, one day, and nothing will sooth them then. Nothing will save you from their wrath. You'll have to be ready to kill us all, if necessary, you know." I could only reply, "We have been ready for this long ago."_   
  
_It was suspicious when Snape had suddenly asked for a potions assistant, contacting the Riddle House only a few hours after our great loss. I believe, as I recall the past events, that he had asked specifically for Potter, implying that his help would be essential._   
  
_The Dark Lord should have known better than he pretended to; Harry Potter had no real talent in Potions, and after the Incident it was possible that the Dark Lord had decided that he wanted him out of the way. Rumors unfolded soon after Harry's first visit to Severus Snape's house. He would suddenly avoid public appearances, and lock himself in his chamber, in which he would spend two or three days in a row alone. In a period that lasted less than a week, he lost weight abruptly and completely changed behavior, acting more like a paranoid than he would have even back in his puberty. We had all noticed his lack of concentration, and how he would avoid our gazes in public events. It is equally possible of course, that his change of attitude had nothing to do with that. The fact alone that he led to death half our mission could have begun driving him mad, filling him with childish regrets about his role in the dictatorship._   
  
_But still – even today, after all these years, the small talks about what secrets Potter might have kept travel around the world in wicked secrecy. They say that Severus Snape was a clever, two – faced, dangerous man, not to be trusted. Among the Death Eaters it was known that he hated Potter for a variety of neurotic reasons, mainly deriving from traumas he never dealt with – concerning an old conflict he had with the Commander's dead father and an unfulfilled school infatuation with Lily Evans, his mother. People today believe – and I am convinced as well - that Snape was regularly tormenting the young man with the Dark Lord's complete consent. They say that he was keeping the boy bound for hours and beat him. They say more._

"Memories Of The Blood Purge War", Lucius Malfoy - 2030 (page 79)

* * *

I step into the Floo hobbling slightly. My knees are still shaky, and cause me trouble balancing on my own feet. The Cruciatus has left a burning sensation on my bones, a familiar aftermath which most likely will follow me for the rest of the week. “Fuck,” I swear loudly as I throw my wand to the wall. Nine thousands dead because of me.  _Do not rescue any men._  And that's not even true, no – nine thousand were only the Death Eaters. The Germans might be more. German women, children, infants burned and tossed away like filthy, infectious rats.

  
How many deaths did I inflict this evening alone? What have I done? Why can't we, for a change, bring to the House a clever man to name Major?  _Dead._  It won't help anyone if I wallow into worthless grief. I have to be useful. I have to be there, in the war, with my men. To fight like they did, fearless, risking their lives every minute. Instead, I am stuck here and cannot do anything but sign the wrong papers and inflict evil to everybody, either I want it or not. If only I could kill Voldemort the same way I kill everybody else. My mind goes back to my present duty. Visit Snape.  
  
Well, that's a surprise. Of all the things Voldemort could have done to punish me, he chose Severus Snape. The bastard couldn't have guessed a better way to make me feel like a child again. I have to fucking  _work with Snape_ , because I was so useless I couldn't even push my brain into thinking for a single damned time – to master to save somebody, anybody, Muggle or not. Death Eater or not. Why didn't I read the report? I can't believe I signed something I didn't read first; I never do such things. I don't know what happened. And now even Snape will have a sarcastic laugh at me.  _Don't even try, Snape_. I am to be respected. I am to be feared. This is my role. Not to be cursed and tortured in front of my inferiors. They'll never obey me again, not after what happened today. It's all over.  
  
What makes me any different from them, I don't know. How am I any better than every murderer who seeks his mental pleasure throwing Avada Kedavras all over England _? I'm here for a reason,_  I tell to myself so that I can keep going. I try to convince myself that I indeed must be doing something useful, that I can't stop and just disappear, even if this is the only thing I want to.  _I'll never be able to stop. I’m stuck with Voldemort forever._  It's foolish to believe I'm a good person based on what I think about when I'm alone - life doesn't work that way. I'm not a saint offering his life for the greater good. Even Dumbledore would be disappointed of me if he could see me now, healthy and well fed in times where people die freezing in the streets. There would be no twinkle of acceptance for this plot twist in his eyes. No lemon drops or “It’s alright, Harry” monologues. It isn't a sacrifice, or a noble deed, to kill innocent people in Europe in order to protect the innocent people in the Islands. My parents wouldn’t be proud of me anymore, and even in my dreams they watch me from a painful distance, never talking to me, never smiling. My mother gave her life to protect me from the person I now live with. The answer is clear and there’s no denial: I'm not better than the other Death Eaters, no; I'm worse. I'm worse because unlike them, I understand the evil I inflict with my acts, while they don't, and thus I keep going.   
  
I've become like Voldemort, it's just that I don't realize it yet. I've become his shallow shadow, an unhealthy parasite, a mouthpiece to repeat and comply at all times, satisfied and so-fucking-confident, like a dull puppet. Soon enough I'll be murdering just to have my fun _. As if murdering with your own hand is any different from sending others to do so._  
  
The castle of Hogwarts dominates my thoughts; it seems like only a few days ago, and yet so far away it might have happened in entirely another lifetime. I vaguely recall preparing my school bag lazily, to run out of the dorm and to the classes. The morning pumpkin juices, the small talk at the Gryffidnor table, Ginny eyeing me flushed from the far end of the hall. Dumbledore twinkling happily for no good reason; Snape sneering and throwing insults to us with all his might, while we’d make fun of him with Ron behind his back. Hermione would ignore us then, afraid of more lost points from Gryffindor.  _We’d lose these points anyway,_  I chuckle to myself. After all, this was Snape, who loved with all his rotten heart to insult and scowl. He’d never lose the chance of entertaining his precious Slytherins in Potions. Accusing me for being late, stupid, or a daydreamer, he’d insult me daily, making a routine out of my bullying.   
  
" _Trust him, Harry_ ," Dumbledore used to tell me. Dumbledore was a fool. I never trusted Snape, and no one should have either. I was telling them. I was trying to show them the truth about him. But Dumbledore was the Headmaster, and I was merely a teenage boy who disliked his professor. My word didn't count to him. I had the truth in my hand and no one would accept it. When he was killed in the Astronomy Tower, it this very wisdom of his to trust that led him to his death. Trusting and forgiving are overestimated virtues, doomed to betray their believers; they are not weapons, and cannot make the world a better place. But even Dumbledore, with his great cleverness and kindness, could not see that. No one could past Snape's mask.  
  
Lips always curved in a mocking smile, speaking tripe all around. Pretending to work as a double agent while he was working for his true Master all along. Being responsible for the distress of anyone he had ever met, swishing his wand with potion stained fingers, casting the Killing Curse –  _"Severus, please", "Avada Kedavra"–_  eyes deep and yet empty of anything but pure deathly monstrosity.  
  
Nothing worse could Voldemort do than send me to brew the medicines along with  _him._  Along with the traitor who never felt an itch of pain in his chest for anyone. Snape, the man who cursed his own students dead in the battle of Hogwarts and trained his Slytherins into another generation of wanna-be Death Eaters, only to be sent at war and die out of inexperience and fear. The man who, after my cooperation with Voldemort, disappeared completely from the foreground. He stayed as far away as he could, as if there was nothing left for him to do anymore.  
  
And now, absent from every political event or demonstration, Snape has chosen to hide to his old family house and brew alone. To work silently, communicating with no one in particular, sinking into his own hate. I wonder how time passes for him and how he spends his days. I suppose a wartime loner would have little to do and a lot to think about, but still there’s no actual explanation. At least he was faithful to someone, back then, even if that someone had to be Voldemort. Now the coward has just backed up. Where was he when our men were being blown up in Poland? Nowhere. When we asked of all healthy men to enlist in the army, he hid and waited, until he spoke to Voldemort privately and he was spared. In this war, Snape does nothing but polishing his cauldrons in the dark. He  _killed_  Dumbledore, for God’s sake. He killed his mentor for an ideology he’s grown bored of following.    
  
Everything I hold inside yearns to burst out, uncontrolled and wild. I don't even know where all this anger came from, I realize rubbing my face. I suppose I had completely forgotten Snape was even alive anymore. Maybe I  _wanted_  him dead so much I had just pushed away his existence and had moved on. Whatever is burdening me is enough; to poison my thoughts with him as well would be too much. What happened today alone will haunt me for as long as I live. The only thing I'd have the strength to voluntarily do at the moment, would be to stay in bed and let the faces of the dead repeatedly pass in front of my eyes, until I can't stand it anymore and drift to sleep.  
  
I bite my lip, hesitating. It's been a bad day. I’m afraid that if I see Snape after all this time, I won't be able to stop myself from attacking him. What wouldn't I give to spit in his face, or break that ugly, hooked nose of his. I have to work with him, though. Do my job and leave. Voldemort is already too displeased with me, to dare make it worse _. Just relax for now, and you'll think all your problems when you're alone again_.  
  
I wash my face, the warm water slightly comforting me, and change my clothes to casual jeans and a black shirt. I leave the Death Eater cloak behind – I won't stand meet Snape wearing the proof of where my latest devotion lies. I think about wearing a coat instead, but since I'll go and return through the Floo, I decide against this as well. Massaging my legs to bring the circulation back to its normal state after the torture, I step into the fireplace that has now turn into a pale shade of green. The Cruciatus is not the kind of curse you get used to as time goes by, but one must always try and keep a decent level of self-control for the aftermath. Voldemort barely tortures me anymore. Raising his wand at me again was unexpected. Maintaining my strength, I quickly dismiss the thought of how I could definitely use a drink and some deep sleep at the moment. I feel the wards around me collapse as I throw down the powder. Twiddling into a haze, and I am transported straight to another fireplace, smaller, and as I notice, smeared with thick ashes.  
  
My skin catches the sweet traces of magic, a warm contact I rarely feel anymore. I let the transportation sink in, blinking. Attempting to step out carefully, I notice the black imprint my right shoe leaves on the carpet and immediately think of stepping back. Then I change my mind. It's not my fault if Snape doesn't clean his fireplace, and I barely give a fuck if I dirty Snape's carpet. Stepping forward, I find myself to a semi-lighted lounge, and curious I take a look around. Heavy velvet curtains cover the thin windows, (which judging from the smell of the room, never open) and bookshelves bowed from the weight of countless books are built in every wall. My eyes suddenly stop at an old brown armchair, and I see the man for the first time.  
  
Severus Snape. The murderer.  
  
The war doesn't seem to affect him at any point, that's for sure; he's still as he always used to – fully clad in black, the tight buttons of his coat running up the length of his throat. Face pale and expressionless, as his hair rests greasy on his shoulders. He's casually resting back, reading the Daily Prophet. He turns one page slowly, concentrated to his reading and pretending he hasn't noticed my arrival.  
                                                                                                     
I swallow hard, not knowing what to do. Not even in my nightmares did I ever imagine I'd be in the same room with the bastard again without attempting to kill him. His voice is calm when he speaks up.  
  
"Was it your idea, Mister Potter, the latest invasion?" His eyes are still focused on the paper, as he acknowledges my presence without really looking interested at it. I watch him carefully, keeping my emotions deep under the surface, as he himself once taught me to. He continues, his tone as harsh and mysterious as I remembered it to be. "An excellent one, I must admit. Pity so many people had to die, let alone those who were… accidentally slaughtered or raped."  
  
 _I'm not a murderer. I didn't know._  
  
"So do inform us, _Commander_  Potter, what do you forecast for this war? In your undoubtedly impressive opinion, how is it going to end, and more precisely, when?" The question is phrased with an arched eyebrow. Snape sounds somehow amused, his thin lips barely twitching. He's mocking me.  
  
I fight the urge to crumple the Prophet and shove it up his arse. "Stay out of what does not concern you, Snape. You're no part of this war, and you never were. You know nothing." Even for Voldemort, Snape was never anything but a tool.  
  
A tool specialized in manipulation. "I know more than you would ever dream of having the chance to know, Potter. Furthermore, please do have in mind that I have witnessed you so nobly selling your soul to the Devil, as any foolish martyr would. Do you not remember how it really happened?" He stretches his legs, as if the conversation has just started to get interesting. “Hide the truth from those cockroaches you call servants, if you must. You cannot hide from me though."  
  
I should have guessed he'd get me back there. Yes, he was there. He knows my weaknesses. He had access in my mind whenever he fancied to, as long as I was a student – I cannot hide from him. Even now, he can’t deny himself the satisfaction of threating me. In the darkest of times, his games have barely grown old. I exhale sharply and regret it immediately. If he thinks he can still make me break with insults deriving from the past, he'll have to wait for a long time.   
  
My anger all but explodes. "Yes, I  _do_  remember, Snape. I remember it every morning I wake up and every night I go to sleep. Guess why - or are you so short sighted you can't even do that? I  _live_ with it.” Deep breath. “I made my choice. When I did what I did Snape, you were watching petrified from the corner of the shack like the coward you always were, waiting for instructions from your  _Lord._  Don't fool yourself with your sophisticated rubbish. Nothing has changed for you since then. You still are the biggest coward I know."   
  
 _Take this, you coward. You hate that word because deep down you know just how true it is._   _I bet it's the only thing that has still the power to pain you in the slightest._  I never knew how to control myself around him and I realize I'm losing it again. It's amazing how he can enrage me with nothing but a couple of sentences. God, so many years. It's almost like we're in the Potions class again, arguing for grades and points. I collect myself and glare proudly at him. This time it’s different; either he wants it or not, I am his superior. He has to show respect to me, and he will.  
  
Snape adjusts his wand into his right sleeve, as if to make a point to me that he has it there. His lip twitches for a second.   
  
He slowly lowers the Prophet, and looks at me for the first time this evening. "Now, now, Potter, let me advise you for once, and despite the stubbornness you inherited from your worthless father, listen carefully, for what I'll tell you is for your own best interests. I suggest you stop attacking me, and instead be docile for the rest of the night. It'd be amazingly unwise of you to try making me disgruntled with you, and the Dark Lord does expect a full report on your behavior, after all." His smile is thin and malicious.   
  
The information takes a moment to be processed, and then I almost snap. The Dark Lord requested of  _Snape_  a report about me? Why? Snape isn't even in his inner circle anymore. This can’t be possible. Even Lucius would be a better choice if Voldemort wanted to test my present intentions. Snape's never been invited to private meetings, and wasn't given a position to the Ministry either. What kind of report could Voldemort ask? It's not normal of him to care if I argue with Snape or not while we work together. Our hatred is known to a lot of people, after all. Even Voldemort should know that we hate each other as much as we always had. Even if I did have a plan to destroy Voldemort – which I should, and I haven’t – Snape would be the last to know. Voldemort knows everything I do is an act for his benefit – he should never expect anything more from me. I swallow, annoyed; Snape's riddles are  _supposed_  to make me nervous. The only logical explanation is that he's lying.  
  
Ignoring his menace, I calmly announce, "The Dark Lord has ordered me to come here to help you. He expects us to brew together the necessary amount of painkillers and necessary medicines to send to France. My Battalion is dying and we must help those we can. I don't have _time_  to quarrel with you now." I take another calming breath, "So, let's get this over with."  
  
He answers as soon as I finish, and an expression of triumph steals his face.  
  
"Lucky for us Potter, I have already developed the potions. I collected all the bottles needed a few hours ago." He's done with it? The bastard. What's he playing at? Impatient to get out of here, I ask, "Why didn't you inform the Dark Lord, then?" Snape's never been that irresponsible.   
  
"In fact, I did," he smirks. "The parcels were sent to St. Mungo's this afternoon, signed by the Dark Lord himself. I made a visit to your home a few hours ago and he signed them then. He was really… dissatisfied with you for the outcome of certain events. Thank Merlin you were  _sleeping_."  
  
As I try to make meaning of his words, I begin to become confused. What did he come to the Riddle House for? Requesting an assistant isn't that important to require a meeting with Voldemort, let alone the day of a big battle. If Voldemort knew the potions were developed and sent to the hospital already, he wouldn't have sent me to Snape for help. He'd have informed me and have me stay home. I tug at my sleeves as suspicion of the worse becomes audible in my voice. "Then why am I here?"  
  
Instead of answering, his black eyes shine quizzically, as they bore in to me from head to toe. He takes his time to observe me as if I am a very expensive object he just bought. Then, ending up at my face, he stares hard, and I stare back.  _I’m not afraid of you anymore._  Eyes leering deep into mine, I feel my neck sweat in wonder of what exactly he's looking for, and what he expects to see. He continues watching me carefully for a long minute, and I fight the urge to look at myself as well, to check out what is that is so essential about me or if something is wrong with my clothing.   
  
His words are not what I expect to hear. "I have waited a long time, looking forward to this day…" Snape's suddenly very serious, his tone a foul mutter. "…Longing for the right moment to act. The Dark Lord wouldn't agree to it, of course, no matter how many times I asked for permission and proved my loyalty with all my heart. He'd dismiss my request right away and I'd face the consequences of daring to express such a wish. You were a precious possession of his, as you are undoubtedly aware, so you were being protected from those who wished to harm or use you." A pause. "You are here tonight, Potter, because you have finally succeeded in enraging the Dark Lord to a point where he no longer cares."  
  
This can't be good, I realize alarmed, and I'm suddenly aware that something very wrong is going on. I should get back and demand some answers from Voldemort. "What do you mean?"  
  
My stress must be obvious to Snape by now, but doesn't seem to affect him in the slightest. "Come here."  
  
What? "Why?"  
  
"Come here, Potter," he growls louder.  
  
"Watch your tone, Snape." Managing to keep my temper under control, I squeeze my palms tightly to brush off my distress. It’s time for him to realize that he can’t treat me like shit anymore. I open my mouth to tell him so, but then he abruptly stands up, throws the newspaper to the floor, and strides over to me. There is no time to absorb how close he's suddenly come, because the next thing I know is his hand unbuckling his belt in fierce movements as he orders, "Enough talking. Get on your knees."  
  
Realization hits me for a moment and time stills – then I almost burst into laughter.  _Snape's a faggot?_  Laughter would be my first reaction, indeed, if I wasn’t panicked. I search for the right words to form, only I find none.  _What does he think he's doing?_  It's not offence as much as repulse, what I feel. How dare he ask me to – Christ. I take several steps back until my back hits the wall and I take out the duplicate of my wand to point it at his nose. He's out of his mind. That must be it - after so many years living alone in empty dungeons and dark houses, he's finally lost it. I pretend to prepare myself to cast a curse.  
  
"What the hell are you doing? You're mental. Stay away from me."  
  
His face flushed, and not bothering to answer, Snape reaches close again detaining my shoulders, and I drop the useless wand down in order to shove him away hard with my hands. The response I receive to my reaction is a vigorous slap across my cheek which brings immediate stars to my eyes and causes me to crumble to the floor.  _He didn't hit me. He didn't dare to. The arsehole is so dead._ I touch my face, startled from the unexpected slap and stumble to my feet as quickly as I can.   
  
“What the-” I need to get out of here before he does anything insane. My fake wand can't fool him forever - he has magic while I don't, and he's taller and stronger than me. A fight would only act against me, let alone it would reveal the fact that I'm a squib. I need to get out of here - now. Slouching under his arm, I run to the Floo and almost manage to step inside before I feel a surprisingly strong hand gripping the collar or my shirt from behind and throwing me with force to the floor again.  
  
"Going somewhere, Potter?" Snape sneers above me.  
  
My head slams viciously against the corner of the table and I cry out in stabbing pain. My vision blurs and my eyes water as I hold my forehead, blood dripping and smearing on my wrist. I realize I'm missing my glasses and they don't seem to be anywhere close. I'm in trouble. Oh god.  
  
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?" I scream.  
  
Snape grabs my hair, twisting his fingers violently and pulling me up to my knees. I yelp, and instinctively jab my elbow in to his crotch with all my strength. Snape growls like a sick dog to that, but doesn't leave me. He clutches the front of his trousers as if to make sure I didn't harm him, and twists my hair harder while another slap lands on my face, before he backhands me and squeezes my face viciously. "You little harlot, you think you can get away, don't you?"  _Okay. He called me a harlot. He's nuts. Either I'm out of here or I kill him._  
  
I look up digging my nails into his wrist. "The Dark Lord will hear about this, Snape. You'd better beg for forgiveness if you want to see the sun again. Let me go or you’ll regret it."  
  
Snape ungrasps my hair to that, but before I can crouch away he slides his fingers around my throat in a tight grip. The first punch comes in a shock; his knuckles shatter my skull and waves of the shaking vibrate my vision, throbbing. Then the real beating begins, and it seems to last for a seeming eternity, his lips drown back as he slogs my face. After several more brutal punches I'm thrown back, the grip on my neck upholding me and tossing me to the bookshelf behind me.   
  
Dizzy and lightheaded, my head hits back with a thud and a groggy sensation runs over my muscles. Reality drifts to a comfortable distance.  _My nose,_ I think. _Eye. Pain. Fuck. No – Sleepy. Really sleepy. Too much light. Must close bed curtains._ The agony pulsates and I relax. I moan weakly, pain striking my skull, shades of black altering in front of my half-closed eyes. _Have to get up. Have to get out of here._  Snape continues undoing the buttons of his trousers and shifts the fabric undisturbed, revealing an already half-hard erection.  _He's so dead if he dares touch me._  I close my eyelids, disgusted at the sight of it, and faintly dig my nails into my palms. The loathing in my chest flames up like an open sore – like acid eating away my lungs and moving hurriedly to the rest of my body.  
  
Snape steps forward, his cock now inches from my face. Desperately trying to come up with some way out of this, I take a deep breath and keep my teeth clenched as my eyes dart between the dim fireplace and the powder bowl on the table. My head spins around and I fight hard to focus my gaze. I'd never make it if I run.  
  
"Open your mouth," Snape whispers, barely audible, but deadly just the same.   
  
The realization of the situation I am in causes my heart to pound furiously in my chest. "No."  
  
He slides his ugly bobbing cock across my lips and with what vigor has remained in me I turn the other way. This time he doesn't hit me but grips my jaw; my mouth remains shut, despite the horrific pain. His cock is against my mouth again and I fear that he may break my jaw if I continue to refuse. He keeps squeezing until the veins of my face throb around the joints and I finally give in.  
  
His voice is only a faded whisper of arousal. "Bite me, Potter, and you'll only live long enough to watch your friends die."  
  
As hopeless as I am, I keep my mouth open, and before I can take hold of reality he thrusts straight into my throat. Repulsion overwhelms me as soon as I feel the taste of it and I gag, chocking around his cock.  _I'm going to vomit. It's just coming._ I try to think of something else, thoughts desperately jumping from the last battle to the office work I was supposed to finish, fighting to disconnect my brain from the reality of the disgusting smell and the bastard slowly fucking my mouth.  
  
"Use your tongue." Words only slightly trembling.  
  
I'm determined to keep my eyes closed for as long as it takes. I won't experience this. _It's not happening._  He thrusts deeper and I spit him out, coughing savagely, my hands pressing in to his thighs in a weak attempt to push him away. I can't do this. My stomach feels like a poisoned bile that keeps buzzing around into me. He slides in again and builds up a steady rhythm, leaving me no option but to swallow my own saliva mixed with his pre-come. His quiet panting increases and my hair is grasped again tightly, as he forces my head to bob in the same pace. He takes his cock out several times, sliding it over my lips, wet and musky, brushing it to my cheeks and right back again.  _You've no idea what you're doing Snape. This will be your damnation. I swear._ As he keeps bobbing my head, I can feel a cruel, cold crack into my heart, which freezes me in my spot, and drains all hope and feeling from within me, replacing them with despair, hopelessness and most of all, fear. This fear claws through my body and wraps around my brain. I choke again and all is left is a confusing, dry reproach.  
  
For a moment I dare to slightly open my eyes, but seeing the dark curls of his crotch almost touching my face, I shut them again immediately. I pause for a few seconds and, stroking himself, Snape waits for me to retrieve my breath and re-open my mouth for him. When I don't, he boxes my head lightly and pushes in. I want to pull away, to wash out my nose and my eyes and my brain and then slam him repeatedly against the wall until he's nothing more than a battered, lifeless corpse.  _I will._ When he finally reaches his climax, the sperm is bitter and heavy on my tongue, and I spit it on the carpet and my shirt, gagging. I hear a sound like a chuckle, and I look up to find him still jerking off, milking the last drops of his balls on my forehead. He smears it with his thumb in the shape of a bolt, following the line of my scar, his lips quirked to a pleased smile. My eyes fall to the tip of his boots, and I wait patiently _. You'll be dead by tomorrow morning, Snape._ He pushes his thumb through my lips _. I'll have my men torture you until you beg for your death._  I lick his thumb clean and he fastens his trousers. _Just wait._  After he's done, he pats me softly on the side of the head and returns to the table, where he appears to be pouring himself a drink.  
  
I stay where I am.  _It's over. You'll get over it._   _Tomorrow they'll be skinning him alive and you'll be watching as if it's your favourite show._ Struggling to grasp what has just happened, I crawl to the floor until I find my glasses and pick them up. I scramble up slowly, clutching the bookshelf.  _How did this happen? How it this possible?_ I regain some steadiness and clean my face off sperm and blood with the sleeve of my shirt that I’ll probably burn to ashes when I get home. I keep my own hand at distance, repelled. The floo is less than four feet away, and looking away from Snape I approach it, unsteady.  
  
The sound of his cloak billowing around fills the room. "Where do you think you're going?" He snarls. "The Dark Lord permitted me to keep you in my possession for the whole night. You didn't think you'd get away solely with an amateur blowjob, Potter, did you?"  
  
He's pacing again and I grab the powder. "Don't you dare come near me! Stay away from me!"  
  
With a switch of his wand he casts Mobilicorpus, and invisible tight ropes are coiled around my neck, wrists and knees. I find myself flying up the stairs, hanging only a few inches from the ground. The spell leads me to a small bedroom and I fall to the bed, being immediately tied up spread eagle and face down, with chains Snape transfigures as he follows behind me. "NO! Snape! Let me go!"  
  
He won't do this to me. He can't  _want_  do this. If he hurts me, he's finished. "Untie me this instant! IT’S AN ORDER!" I yank so hard against the bedposts that I can see the skin on my wrists begin to roughen and peel, but I don't care. The shackles shrink and become tighter and tighter as I struggle, making it impossible for me to move more than a few inches at a time. I growl unable to hide my horror. "You're turning against the Dark Lord's Commander, Snape. I have ruled and ordered the British Army since the day Queen Elizabeth fell!" This time he chuckles louder, not bothering to hide his amusement. "Treachery is treated with death," I inform him, talking more to the mattress I rest my wounded head on than to him. "They'll have your head for this! This will be the last thing you ever do, Snape! THINK!"  
  
Snape undresses casually, taking off robe and coat and putting them on an old chair, ignoring me completely.  
  
My jeans and boxers are suddenly torn to pieces as he casts a firm Reducto, and I find myself completely naked while he climbs behind me to the bed. The mattress is old, and sinks as Snape stops between my legs, wearing nothing but his unfastened trousers and a black shirt. My nails claw helplessly at the chains, kicking furiously and swearing as he pins me to the sheets wordlessly and lies down on top of me. Dread washes over me and sends a chill down my spine. I can no more avoid the beating of my own heart as it pounds with futility against its cage of bone and cartilage. My fear is a heavy demon breathing down my shoulder blades as I sweat and become pale; then the tremor in my hands begins. My head is giddy and my stomach gets nauseous. “Snape, no…”   
  
Spitting twice on his palm, he knees my legs further apart and, judging from the movement, he strokes himself again. "NO! God-what are you-" No, no, no. I bite back a whining; my body bows and arches as I flail to try and escape my fate. At the touch of his hands probing at my thighs, my head jerks up. "LET ME GO!" My head all but falls back to the greasy pillows as the pain of my injured temple assaults me again, and I can do nothing to prevent his touch, not even the littlest struggle, and horror catches up to me again.  
  
Snape leans close to my ear as he is now covering my body with his own and whispers, "You're not a Commander, Potter. You are a pathetic slave, nothing but a funny charlatan running around for the others' amusement, an acting entertainer for our Lord. And I'm going to do whatever it pleases me to you – the only thing  _you_  can do about it, is scream."  
  
Something hard and wet presses between my buttocks and I realize with panic that it must be his cock.  _He's not joking. He's actually doing it._  The thought is so terrifying my heart seems to stop for a moment; then he slowly pushes in and pain blinds me. I can't take it. I can't do this. It's too much. I cough up a cry that is more like a half-retch and quickly bite the pillow, determined not to give him the satisfaction of hearing me. My body shakes from terror and mind shattering pain as his chest moves slightly on my back and he rolls his hips thrusting forward, every thrust deeper than the previous one.  
  
He grips me tightly, nails digging into my shoulders, his hot breath tremulous near my neck while with vicious pushes of his pelvis he drives his cock all the way in.  _This isn't really happening._  I leave the pillow and bite my lips, muffling my whimpers and praying that I'll get out of here alive. Snape rolls and pumps his hips as furiously as he can, craving to hurt me, to tear me apart using nothing but his own flesh.   
  
Searing fiery stabs push inside me, jarring and brutal. With each thrust of his, the pain amplifies and my consciousness ebbs. His moaning is muffled against my shoulder and black mists swirl at the edges of my mind, blending in with his dark raven hair on my cheek. I remain silent the whole time, listening to his grunts, shame building up in my heaving chest. I've no idea how much time has passed, but when Snape pulls out savagely I am sure he must have torn shreds of skin inside me. _It's over. He's done. He must be done._  
  
He mutters something that must be a spell, and the chains holding me move and drag me across the bed until I find myself on my back and wincing in agony, still tied down and limited to any movement. My skin shivers as I feel him glaring down at me, and I’m unable to hide my nakedness. Burning heat fills my heart and spreads throughout my body like wildfire, rising into my face.   
  
Still panting, Snape pauses to unbutton his sweaty shirt, and seeing my embarrassment, he winks an eye at me, amused. He falls on top of me afresh, spitting on his hand once more and stroking his bloodied cock lazily.  _My blood. I'm bleeding._  Anger builds up inside me and I have to fight hard not to scream in ongoing agony as he guides his cock back in. It's worse than losing an arm when Apparating. It's worse than the Cruciatus. It's worse than everything. I look the other way as he fucks me into the mattress, low, harsh hisses escaping his lips.  
  
"Look at me," he huffs. I refuse to move my stare from the moldy wall at my left, so he cups my face with a firm hand and forces my face to his.  
  
"Look at me, goddamn you!" He fucks me harder now, his cock almost completely coming out of me before slamming back in again.  
  
"Look at me… look at me," he repeats hoarsely with every thrust, utterly lost in his own pleasure. I close my eyes denying the situation, as an enraged smack lands to my already swollen face, the burn of it imperceptible in compassion with the rest of my torment. A drip of salty sweat falls off of him onto my lips. He clasps my face, squeezing it into place and holds it still. He wants me to watch. He wants me to watch his face as he rapes me.  _He's not raping me. This isn't even real. It'll finish soon and he'll let me go eventually._  
  
Despaired, I watch. I watch his dilated pupils and the black depth of his eyes, glistening, raw, lost in a wild lust that has nothing to do with me but with the abuse itself, and I see nothing but hate. Hate and an anger wilder than any animal could ever have. Anger for things I don't know, or for things I don't care about, and yet he takes his revenge on me, punishing me for existing, for getting in his way, for having ever dared meet him. It's his eyes that drive me over the edge. The tears I was fighting to hold back slide to my temples and he smiles at the sight of them, humping me harder, leaving me no option but to feel every little detail of this nightmare.   
  
Snape suddenly stills, thrusting deeply only a few more times, and at long last he pulls out, jerking off fast and rashly until he comes with a triumphant grunt to my belly and chest. The gobs of sperm are thick and drip on my ribs. I can finally look away again.  
  
With a flick of his hand Snape unties the ropes and I remain unmoving, indifferent of my freed limbs, feeling too weak to fight, or scream, or say anything at all. He's taken what he wanted. It doesn't matter.  _It's nothing._  He is the last to speak as he throws my fixed clothes to the bed and walks off to what must be a bathroom.  
  
"Get out of here."  
  
Whatever happens next comes in a haze. My fingers are unsteady and I can't button my jeans - I wear my shirt backwards and it sticks on the drying sperm on my skin. I stare confused. Why do I have sperm on me? My wrists have cuts all around and I fall down on the floor when I attempt to get up from the bed, my jeans slipping to my thighs. _Hurry up. You're so worthless you can't even walk now, aren't you?_ I leave my shoes and boxers behind and flop downstairs limping, a heavy dyspnea blocking my diaphragm.  
  
 _Out. Out. OUT._  It hurts to walk and I stumble down twice as I shamble through the fireplace to the Riddle House and to my room. Nothing's clear around me and yet I wear my glasses.  _Not clear. Blur._ Maybe I don't I wear them, then. I'm not sure. I'm supposed to, though, because I have myopia. Aunt Petunia didn't know. A teacher had found it out. Aunt Petunia. I miss Aunt Petunia.  
  
The moment I close and secure the door behind me, locks and keys in place, I rush to the bathroom without opening any lights and collapse by the toilet, defeated. I let out a long shriek, sounding more like a dying animal. My cry crashes to the walls and comes back to me, echoing strange and unnatural.  
  
I throw up for what must have been half an hour, resting my forehead to the toilet lid as dizziness makes me tremble and spew ruthlessly. This can't have happened. It didn't. It's some kind of mistake. My stomach is emptied but I can't stop gagging and spitting. Maybe I'll just die here.  _Can't die. If I die they die too. Stop whining like a baby._  Almost crawling, I get into the shower and turn it on, only to realize I'm still clothed. Shaking, I struggle to get out of the fabrics and, losing my patience after a minute, I rip them apart.   
  
I have blood on my thighs and dried sperm is smeared across my torso. The water is scalding and my flesh turns blood red too as steam coils around me, so thick I almost thinkI have somehow caught fire.  _I wish I had._  I wash away my shame.  
  
Grabbing the soap, I scrub my skin furiously, trying to remove all trace of blood, even though more keeps dripping down my thighs. I methodically scrub off the layer of tainted skin.  _No evidence. No proof._  I have to get clean. I'll skin myself if that's what it takes.  
  
An hour passes and even though the water has turned cold, I keep scrubbing and soaping, the water mildly pink and my torso scratched blue from the raw pumpkin sponge. It's hard to get up and I steady myself against the wall as I attempt another spew to the washbasin but end up discharging only thick saliva. I wash my teeth. Then I wash them again. And again. I still don't bother to turn on any lights as I climb to my bed hissing from the crude feeling on my colon and stomach, deciding to put a pillow under my pelvis and lie face down.   
  
The blood pounding in my veins feels hot as I inhale and exhale sharply. I'm going to kill the bastard. I will destroy him. He'll be sorry he ever laid a finger on me. I pull a blanket around me and think of ways to tear Snape to pieces and throw him to the wolves until all that is left of him is a greasy pool of rotten blood.  _Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine._  
  
Although I didn't hear anyone knocking, the door opens suddenly and Voldemort stands in the hallway amused, looking at my lying on the bed. If he expects me to bow before him, he doesn't show it. I should get on my knees and beg humbly for his forgiveness, for the deaths my plan cost, the expenses we wasted, and my stupidity to sign without reading that damning report first. I should get up and kill him. I don't move.  
  
"Is everything quite alright, Harry?" He asks, his voice a creeping silk hiss. It's parseltongue. Then a mirthless laugh rushes from his throat and I watch him, totally petrified, denying what I should have realized all along but in my fear and dread, didn't.  _I have waited a long time, looking forward to this day, longing for the right moment to act. The Dark Lord wouldn't agree to it, of course, no matter how many times I asked for permission and proved my loyalty with all my heart. He'd dismiss my request right away and I'd be facing the consequences of daring to express such a wish. You are here tonight, Potter, because you have finally succeeded in enraging the Dark Lord to a point where he no longer cares._  He knows. Voldemort knew from the start. He sent me to the pervert because he wanted to punish me. It was Voldemort who did this to me.  
  
It's like all my energy has been suddenly sapped away, spread thin like translucent wax paper.  _Oh._  Obviously uninterested in an answer, Voldemort closes the door with a dull bang, his hysterical laugh still echoing from the far end of the hall.


	6. Chapter 6

_The World War which shook Europe from 1997 to 2001 was exclusively the longed-for result of British arrogance. Although the whole world had at that time been mobilized against us, Britain was actually not defeated yet. I may safely state this today._  
  
 _And yet to speak of England's_   _world_   _power_ _as the master of the world, is nothing but an illusion. I will begin with the internal situation: The interests of the inner circle were of no weight in determining the orientation of our aim. One spoke about freedom, one spoke about democracy, one_   _spoke_   _about the achievements of a worldwide system, meaning nothing but the stabilization of society, which, thanks to our Leader, was able to survive as an elite population._  
  
 _As for Harry Potter, he had no say in the matter. One would think he might have stopped caring, but that was not true. For some reason Harry Potter was lost, and I admit it, I was intrigued to study him – to watch his pained expression as he scribed down the nonsense we dared name strategies. Head down, fists clutched, he was a prisoner of his personal history, while everyone believed that his main purpose in life was to follow a plan. They never asked if that plan was his or if it was created by the Dark Lord and thrown upon him - so I decided to solve this out. I needed answers._  
  
" _Do you think we'll be waiting long?" I asked the Dark Lord one night, keeping my voice low. "The last time we were in this building, someone accused Harry Potter of being a traitor. How long do we have to wait for him to prove he follows you from his heart?" The Dark Lord smiled that particular smile – the one he'd give when he was trapped, but yet remained deadly serious. "Yes, I think you'll be waiting long."_  
  
 _Half-joking_ _, I informed him that my wealth had seen better days, and he should give me a wiser reason to trust the boy if I was to waste my last penny for his plans. As calmly as he could, he told me not to worry. "As long as we are the ones who rule over the world we don't need money, and if we lose, money won't be able to save us."_  
  
 _Even then, I had more faith in the Dark Lord than anyone else. He alone had kept his promises, all his promises, to the_   _muggle_ _people. And Harry Potter would be cold and outlandish, all of sudden. He became a strict leader himself, barely talking,_ _making_   _decisions without asking permission or discussing any of them. How did he change, after the battle of Germany, and if this had to do with Severus Snape, I was not yet to know. Recalling Potter's behavior though, I believe one thing for sure: Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad._  
  


  
_"Memories Of The Blood Purge War", Lucius Malfoy - 2030 (page 91)_   


         

* * *

  
I look at the mirror, examining my reflection.  
  
Unruly, wild jet-black hair, with little flocks popping up all around; fringe untamed, covering half my forehead, leavingexposed the thin pink scar that's formed into the shape of a lightning bolt. White skin. Pale, with a couple of spots under the chin. No facial hair. Not  _much_ , that is. Yet, more than last year. Green eyes. Almond shaped eyes, like my mother's. Eyes… eyes –  _look at me_  – dark circles under green eyes. Round rimmed glasses hooked on a regular nose. Pink lips. I'm still myself. Still me.  
  
I wash my face, leaving my glasses in arm's reach on the bench. I'm still here. Alive. I'm still Harry Potter.  
  
Somehow I can't match the name with the reflection I see before me. I pinch my arms to ensure I am awake; I scratch my wrists. The marks around them are almost healed. I wash harder.  
  
It's been a week. My stomach has gotten worse today, despite the sedatives. I've been ending up nauseous after every meal for the past days, and I can't even help it. I take small bites of whatever the elf brings me, and usually throw up shortly after it.  _My fault._  I don't feel hungry at all. Not anymore. Voldemort didn't visit again, except to inform me that he announced to the conference that I was experiencing a rather exhausting flu, and I'm in need of rest. He leaves my office work outside of the door, daily. We don't discuss what happened.  
  
It occurs to me that, judging from the fresh blood I find on my underwear every morning, I should probably get some medical care. I forbid myself thinking about it – there is no way I visit a hospital about this, and I'd better die right now than ask of Voldemort to help me get a treatment.  
  
I'm worthless. There's no use blaming Voldemort or – or  _him_  – or anyone else. Voldemort wanted revenge and he was right to do so. I should be killed for what I did. I should suffer worse. Why didn't he kill me? I should be dead. This emptiness would eventually go away then.  
Yet the feeling remains, terrifying and vivid; every time the lights go off, I am convinced surely I died somewhere in the middle of this week and didn’t notice.  
  
The beats of my heart at night make me frustrated; I don't deserve them, and they're loud,  _so loud_ , like the bells of a large, echoing church in the middle of nowhere. They distract me. I stay awake and push my face into the pillows, seeking a comfort I won't be granted with. I hate being awake. The thinking becomes too intense, too much. Sleeping is worse.  
  
I thought that at least the fear would fade. Instead, the things that I remember, the huffs, the whispers, seem to grow stronger, to the point where I can feel their weight in my chest. It's unbearable. And nothing is worse than stepping into my room at night, afraid of what broken pieces of myself I might find there. How I'll have to struggle to keep the images away from my head. How when the light goes off, the nightmare becomes real again.  
  
I made some firecalls and canceled two appointments that I'd be furious to miss under other circumstances. I considered canceling my visit to the Minister himself - only I can't do that, and he'd better be waiting for me today. The elves are bringing me soups and compresses, apprehensive, avoiding any question about the reason of my sickness. I fake a low coughing when they are near. I caught Hokey checking on me yesterday night and I was startled to death.  
  
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" I shouted at him, so loud my eyes watered and my vocals hurt. So loud I felt like _breaking_  the air of the room in two. The elf stepped back in fear and disappeared; I stayed awake until the morning.  
  
I smoked a new pack, whole. It wasn't enough. My eyes kept watering, reminding me how weak I am. I blamed the nicotine.  
  
The fourth day I made myself presentable and, after showering for a good couple of hours, in which I mostly clawed my torso under the steaming shower, I showed up to the deliberation and silently kept notes of the new strategy. Voldemort didn't bother to ask of my opinion this time. I believe he won't, ever again. I avoided meeting his eyes as he passed me over the dossiers. He didn't even bring me into the general discussion.  
  
I nodded my head every now and again, but never looked up. The pen slipped from my hands several times. Dolohov asked if I was feeling alright. I told him to shut up. It occurred to me that I'm nothing to Voldemort anymore; he has at last Europe united under his yoke. He doesn't need me, and he's way too powerful to waste his time being noble and gentle with me. No one seems to have noticed his change of attitude, but I do. I know.  
  
He's been keeping Lucius at his office the last nights, after the meetings. Even if all the doors were closed, I could hear disagreements and furious whispers until the early morning. I wonder if Lucius has considered at all my orders after the outcome of the events. I shouldn't hope for it – for a Malfoy, throwing mudbloods in the sea would certainly be more amusing than actually looking after them. Maybe Voldemort is planning to kill me for real this time, and wants it done quietly. Maybe he's bored of our deal.  
  
It seems that washing is never enough to skin the filth off me. Every time I get out of my room I can't wait to hurry back in so I can bath and wipe Snape's smell off me. And no matter what I do, this smell seems to follow me whenever I go, being always with me, into me, sinking into the roots of my bones. I'm being startled without reason, I feel touches even when I'm alone under my blanket. Snape's hands grabbing me hard, leaving marks only I can see, his voice deep in my ears and my brain. _You're not a Commander._  I'm not, indeed. These days, I'm barely human.  
  
I stole some sleeping potions from the kitchen's cabinet along with a handful of painkillers, but I'm still unable to prevent the nightmares.  _Look at me, goddamn you!_  Whenever I look, time has stuck to Snape's wrathful black eyes. I cannot rest, I cannot think – I'm dead while I'm not, and the anger won't go away no matter how hard I try to discipline myself. I developed a fever for the first couple of days. I was afraid that it might have been an infection, but luckily it soon passed. I want to sleep. A coma would be nice. Or amnesia.  
Anything, just to get rid of this, these thoughts, whispers in my mind. Did he take my soul, too?  
  
I stay in bed most of the time. I'm exhausted, more tired than I've ever been. And even though I want to not exist, even though I want collapse into the floor and decay, I know I have to be strong. I have to - because no one is going to be strong for me.  
  
A knock is heard from the door and the old house elf pops his head in and announces, "Master Potter, forgive Bobby, Master, for being annoying while Master Potter is feeling sick. Yaxley sir has come to visit Master Potter and insisted that Harry Potter sir should see him immediately. Yaxley sir is waiting in the lounge. What should Bobby do, Master?"  
  
I push the fog from my mind and try to catch up with reality. Yaxley has come to visit me? What for? If Voldemort was here he would go straight to him, so I must be alone in the house. Maybe Yaxley wanted to talk to him and, seeing he's missing, decided to talk to me instead. None of our fellows contacted me this week, and it can't be because they've been told I have the flu. They simply know I'm not to be trusted anymore. Not after blowing up nine thousand Death Eaters.  
  
"Tell him I'm coming," I order, not really having any other choice. I wear some decent clothes and a regular green cloak before I wash my face for a last time and attempt to comb my hair. The air is getting colder in the House as winter pursues, making the stairs creak and the ceilings whisper during the night. It's as though the ghosts of the people we have killed haunt the place and curse us behind the walls. It's possible.  
  
Dust is covering most of the rooms, since it's only me and Voldemort living here anymore. We keep the offices and the main hall alive while the rest of the rooms rot in the dark. I stop right before climbing down the stairs and lean to the wall, as a thought strikes me.  _I can't go there. Yaxley will see my face - and he'll know. He'll know what's happened and everybody's going to know if I'm seen._  It's somehow written in my face. Somehow, I carry it with me, everywhere.  _Nothing's changed. Act normal and that's all._  
  
Yaxley is waiting in the lounge indeed, in which he must have entered without the elf's consent. Neither Bobby nor Hokey allow the visitors past the hall, and our visitor's lack of manners is a good enough reason for it. Yaxley probably denied behaving until he saw me, and just walked in. He's peering at a drawer, picking up old bottles of wine and examining them in the dim light. He brings them closer to read the labels, admiring the collection.  
  
I hem, making a show of my disapproving. "Do you consider it wise to fumble the Dark Lord's belongings under his nose, Yaxley?"  
"Commander!" He leaves the bottle aside and bows slightly, closing the drawer and leaving the bottles down. "Forgive my tactlessness. Those brands are more than irresistible to look at, let alone drink. They're considered extinct."  
  
“Are they?” Faintly smiling at him, I drop the strictness down and I sit on the sofa, slightly wincing only for a second before I remember to bite it back. The threat is obvious,  _let me taste or I'll tell_ , and the New Constitution's Head is such a bitch she won't flinch to impeach even the famous Riddle House. I extend my hand, pointing at the bottles. "Come on, open that drawer again and get us some  _irresistible_  drink. You'd better not have poisoned anything." He'd better done.  
  
Yaxley takes his time picking a bottle and eventually pours us a common scotch. "You should be the one to fill the glasses, Potter. I am the visitor after all, and it's your scotch we're drinking." He's not really offended; his voice comes from a distance I can barely grasp. It's really cold in here – more than it was even a few hours ago. Instinctively I look around for Dementors, and when I find none, I relax.  
  
"Lessons from a true gentleman," I mock, "And I've no idea whose scotch is this." I take three full sips and rub my eyes. A soreness seems to have attacked my body again– an itching, irritating feeling all over my arms and legs, as if the blood has been abruptly sucked out of my veins.  _Stop._  I shrug.  
  
"Hard week? You look distracted," he points out.  
  
"Mhm." Yaxley sits at the far end of the couch and leaves some papers on the table. I understand he's probably waiting for me to do something with them, like read them or at least pretend to. Shooing the numbness from my sight, I take a look, browsing through the pages, reading some random passages and finding Voldemort's sign at the last page. Well, burning them would be a better option.  
  
I chuckle, unsure, "That's ridiculous."  
  
"The Dark Lord owled me the command this morning. Once our men heal well enough to move back to the English grounds, he's planning to send another twenty million men to fight. He wants Germany, Potter. He wants all of it. He's considering the battle a won one already."  
  
I shift to my seat and wait for him to announce this is some kind of stupid joke. When he doesn't, confusion overwhelms me and I'm suddenly worried. Voldemort isn't telling me his plans anymore - he's even informed the Ministry instead of me. There is no doubt anymore – he's going to kill me. I swallow hard.  
  
"Yaxley, we don't have twenty million men. I – they're dead. All of the other battalions have moved to Russia and proceed north. Where are we going to find so many soldiers?"  
  
He nods frantically, satisfied someone agrees with him.  
  
"That's what I said. That's exactly what I said. But he seemed positively sure, and ordered me to take a mission to the French battlefield to heal those we can. He wants everything to be done quickly. Once we empty the battlefield he'll act."  
  
 _Act._  So Voldemort must be hiding a second army. Why hadn't he told me? I mentally try to determine when exactly he could have started creating it, if that's even possible, ending up that it would be madness to hide an army in the most crucial period of the war. There must be something else.  
  
"Who runs the project to France?" Annoyance is obvious in my voice.  
  
"You, I was hoping. My other volunteers are either useless or are being generously paid from Narcissa to participate."  
  
The thought of Bellatrix massaging healing salves to unconscious men or cleaning their wounds makes me shudder. The Malfoy family has no touch with reality. They think they're kings of the world, with their blond hair and cold smiles. I refill my glass. "Someone must tell Narcissa she's not the only woman with a son at the war."  
  
"Someone must tell Narcissa her husband visits distinguished brothels every weekend," he adds, chanting. It's a weird thing, but true all the same, Yaxley finding relaxing my company. I find it hard to identify the loner that he really is deep down, instead of the madman I've witnessed him be so many times. I'm repulsed of him as I'm repulsed of everyone.  
  
It's that feel of loneliness again, that I had forced myself to push away years ago. The mere existence of another person in the same room with me makes me tense. Maybe visiting the battalion would be a nice idea of a way to take revenge, after all. That's what I should do to punish myself. Who am I, anyway, sitting here, denying to face the consequences of my own actions?  
  
"I will discuss with the Dark Lord the possibility of a leave, but I don't promise. He is very busy these days, so I've barely seen him. In the meantime, get me a hundred men and make a proclamation to St. Mungo, asking for volunteers. We need as much nurses willing to travel as possible. I'll see the rest."  
  
He agrees with his eyebrows. "You're a strong man, Potter. You have it in you."  _He's lonely too_ , I think. Why is he still admiring me?  
"You know I failed," I mumble, regretting it the moment it slipped from my mouth. It's not his job to having heard me saying this. Why did I even say it?  
  
"This is war, Potter. Of course you failed. And you will fail again, as we all do."  
  
We finish our drinks in silence, the short steps of the elves in the kitchen gently interrupting the calmness of the room. I don't want to fail again. I don't want to even try; only sleep will make things better, and yet sleeping is another strife for me to fight. When Yaxley leaves, I escort him out, and the bright daylight hits my face for the first time after a week. I have an urge to scream, all of sudden; the light makes me anxious even though I know staying inside will make me worse.  
  
"Have a nice day, Commander. I'll be glad to work with you." He's only hoping to work with me so he can get away from here. Even the horrors of France and Germany are better than dealing with Voldemort himself every day, I suppose. I search for sympathy in me for Yaxley but find none.  _You are all cowards. I_ _live_ _with him, for God's sake. Do I whine about it? Do I whine about anything? You're all weak. I'm not weak_ _,_   _though. I don't value my life as a free man's, and that reminds me what I am. You're all fools._  "Take care," I nod before closing the door and locking it. I lean on it and close my eyes.  
  
It's been more than three days I myself saw Voldemort, I realize, except the meeting of Saturday and a couple of meals in which no one said a word. He was waiting of me to speak up about it, I could tell. His eyes shone and yearned for an outburst or a verbal attack. Something, anything to show him my pain, so he could laugh at me and humiliate me more. Bad for him though, I've no pain to hide.  
  
Nothing hurts anymore. He didn't get what he wanted, and when I announced I'll be eating in my room from now on I didn't receive a disagreement.  
  
Either way, he is probably preparing the situation so he can exile me too and have me murdered if I lose him another battle. I laugh at myself. As if taking  _that kind_  of revenge from me wasn't enough.  _Shut up. Don't think of it now. Don't think of it at all._  My nails claw at the door and I hold myself upright. What Snape did to me is something I must forget. Bringing it up is a weakness I cannot allow myself to have.  
  
Rubbing my face to recover from my thinking, I hurry off to the Floo and get some powder in my handful before I step into the fireplace and announce, "Ministry of Magic Headquarters, Whitehall."  
  
Emerald green flames cover me from head to toe and transport me straight to the Atrium of the eighth floor, pushing me out forcefully. It's the latest trick, so the Ministry floo will always remain unoccupied for the next travelers. The huge statue in the centre of it, made of black delicate stone, dominates the hall as always. The witch and wizard sitting on carved thrones, made of naked, submissive muggles, were long ago replaced by a sculpture of Voldemort standing on them, his hand holding the Elder Wand and pointing upwards, face proud and more human than he really has. The stupid, pathetic faces of the stone slaves, pressed together naked and ugly, make me shiver, no matter how many times I've seen them. The words MAGIC IS MIGHT, carved into expensive black marble, shine like fire around the statue.  
  
A mission to the France-German borders is not difficult to be made. Yaxley will find me what I need and if we're lucky we will heal the men well enough to help them transport back. Brooms can also help.  
  
I walk over to the far end of the Hall to take the internal lifts, wondering why so many queues of wizards are formed before them. Dozens of ministry workers emerge from the fireplaces and hurry to arrive and stand here as well, while other visitors are keep coming as well. The traffic increases as minutes go by and I feel my hands sweat; all I see is feet, bodies, and cloaks running around me, and I'm sure that the hall cannot possibly have air for all of us – they breathe too much, too fast, and they're too many – I’m afraid that if they all keep breathing and talking like this we'll all be suffocated.  
  
What if they breathe all the air and I faint unnoticed? I'd collapse down and they'd see me only when it'd be too late.  _Harry Potter, passed away from asphyxiation in the Ministry grounds._  Why do they waste our air talking? The dumbasses don't even think how dangerous this is. One could die simply because of being in a crowd. Heavily trembling, I decide to use my authority to walk past them.  
  
"Please move aside," I demand loudly. "Harry Potter commands you to."  
  
Whispers of shock unleash as people move and watch me, some of them bowing out of admire, gasping, reaching close to talk to me, babbling "Harryr Potter!" and "It's really him!" as I walk past them and take the lift.  _Thank God_  - alone again. The lift announces in a sweet female voice, "Level Eight. Atrium."  
  
"The Minister's office," I order, and after a moment the wooden door closes firmly. I check my hair on the mirror and find out it's in a horrible state. I pat it desperately, without any success to calm it down. The lift swirls and changes its direction, causing me to miss one step and hold on the walls, and eventually it steadies itself, going down a little faster than necessary until it stops.  
  
"Level two. Department of Magical Law and Blood Control Enforcement. The Minister's Office, far end of the Hallway. Have a nice day, and remember: Magic is Might."  
  
Having doubts about if I should wish the same to a lift, I step out and walk to the empty hallway, wand clutched into my fist just in case. The last thing I'd want is to see Malfoy and suffer his questions. The minister's door is big, made of wood and silver. An ancient representation of a middle age witch burning alive her muggle tormentors is painted on it.  _Muggles did worse to us,_  is the new argument.  _Look what they did over the ages, look how stupid and evil they are._  I knock on the door and wait until, quite surprisingly, Stanley opens the door and welcomes me in, excited.  
  
"Commander Potter, oh my God. It's been a long time, hasn't it?" So everybody is fucking happy to see me today. How touching.  
  
He is a young Death Eater, with knobby knees, acne, and huge eyes, whom his father had been pleading me for months to put him in the Ministry so he could avoid the recruitment. I sometimes regret agreeing to convince Pius make him his personal stenographer, although it is more than sure that the boy would have been killed the moment he lay foot in a battle. He's too happy to be in a war. Too happy to be a Death Eater.  _Yeah, right. As if he'd have a choice._  
  
"Yes, it has," I say firmly, a forced smile spread on my face.  
  
"I am a Court Scribe now, did you know? The Minister is rather bored of having me around all day long, I think. And we don't even organize trials anymore. Azkaban is full, they say, so it would take months to try them all. We just throw them in." Very considerate, indeed. Might as well shrink the prisoners and lock them in a trash bin if necessary.  
  
I have to pretend to be interested, I assume; the boy doesn't deserve my bad mood. He's trapped in here just as well and a lot of people seek comfort in talking to me lately.  _And as a matter of fact, this needs to stop - I'm not Dumbledore. Do I look like a holy saint?_  "Good luck with it, Stanley. I'm sure you'll do great."  
  
Thank God I didn't die in the Atrium. And then –  _die_  in the Atrium?  _Because other people were_ _breathing_ _my_ _air?_  What's wrong with me? That doesn't make sense. Why was I afraid of that? It sounds stupid and looks more like a phobia than a real concern. So, I'm that fucked up now, am I not? Developing phobias is the last thing I need to deal with.  _Asphyxiation._  Maybe the painkillers make my brain go numb. There's no other explanation.  
  
"You believe it for real?" Stanley's face grows bright with courage. Believe what? Oh. That. No, I don't believe it for real. He's wasting his time in the secretary office because he's weak and his parents are weak too, while other people his age risk their lives out there. While they  _die_  because of my stupid mistakes. I wrap my cloak around me and think of his question. The chance for me to answer never comes – the door to the main office opens and Pius Thicknesse approaches swaggering to greet me.  
  
"Harry Potter!" Laughing, he shakes my hand frantically, clearly glad to see me.  
  
"It's nice to see you, Minister," I murmur.  
  
"I was hoping you would come by one of these days. It's an honor to have you in the Ministry again." An urge builds up inside me to smash his face and leave, unable to say where it came from. All of sudden, my mind darts back to Snape and my hands chill.  _NO. Why am I such a child that I have to bring it up every five seconds? I won't let this be my doom. I can't._  
  
"Commander, are you feeling alright? You've gone pale."  
  
 _I'm alright. Of course I'm alright._  I blink several times and retrieve my smile. "Yes, of course, just a bit tired. Shall we go to your office? I hope you're not too busy."  
  
"Harry, I'm never too busy for you. Please do come in." He shoos Stanley away and we get to his main office as he closes the door behind us and casts the Muffliato spell. I notice the tall ceiling; it's covered with an oil painting of elves and mermaids, while a few metres away some centaurs rest in the arms of blond, beautiful veelas. One of them smiles at me as I look up.  
  
This must be the only trace of the old order that has remained in the Ministry. I attempt to ignore it as I guess Pius must not really be proud of it. We sit down and he begins a rather boring monologue of the discipline enforced in elves and half-human creatures the last months. He knows I don't care about any of it, but hopes I will transfer the information to Voldemort. I bet he imagines me in some rich manor, casually mentioning to an interested Voldemort what a wonderful minister we have.  
  
My head hurts and I let him speak for as long as he fancies, nodding every now and then and agreeing with mostly everything. I keep pretending to give a damn until he finishes.  
  
"But you're not here for this, are you, Harry?" No shit. And c _alling me Harry won't create the intimacy you're hoping for, nor will I trust you more than necessary._ I take a deep breath.  
  
"Pius… I am planning to travel to the border line tomorrow."  _Just let this work._  
  
"Germany?" He's not surprised. I nod.  
  
"Well, good luck with it." That simple? No, I don't think so. If he desires Voldemort's approval for his actions he'll have to offer more.  
  
"You need to sign for me, Pius. I need permission for me, my men, and the nurses. Provide us a hundred Portkeys and as much brooms as you can get us. We'll go by Disapparating.”   
  
I'm asking too much, I realize, and Voldemort would not force him follow my orders at this point. The wasted expenses this year leave little to wonder about. He cannot provide me half of what I'm asking for.  
  
"Harry."  
  
"I know. Just – do it. I'll owe you."  
  
"Listen to yourself Harry, for Merlin's sake! You'll carry wounded men with brooms? How? Are you planning to smear their dripping blood all over the sea while flying them back, too? Because that's what is going to happen, Harry. They don't have mere scratches and spots, they are  _dying._  Imagine their state and tell me, if what you're requesting makes sense."  
  
And even if my plan succeeded, they would develop pneumonia on the way back. "Carriages, then."  
  
Stroking his excuse of a beard, he thinks. I wait. Eventually, "Okay. I'll see what I can do. No money from me, though."  
  
My parents kept aside a small fortune for me, when they were alive. It was supposed to help with my education and personal life. Or with a marriage. Or even charities. It was not supposed, however, to be spent healing Death Eaters. I nod.  
  
"I would expect the Dark Lord to organize this apart from the Ministry, however. How's come you ask help from me?" He's smart, and he deserves a stunning lie for his indiscreetness. I'm tired of manipulating people though, and thinking of a lie would take enough time to be composed for him to understand I'm making it up. So, I go with truth.  
  
"Pius, what I'm about to tell you must remain between us. Especially those who work for you cannot know - it will be a great disadvantage for you and the Ministry."  
  
And he was definitely hoping for this answer. He drags the chair closer, his hands clapped together on the imposing desk. "I'm listening."  
  
"The war is not heading as we thought." Silence. I continue. "Our men cannot Apparate, and most of them are severely wounded. Those who have seen battalion in France describe it as a bloodied cemetery. We have lost contact with the battalions in Russia and the owls we send freeze and die the way. We have no way of communication – we've lost traces of our own men and the winter grows colder than we estimated. The Dark Lord announced a proclamation this morning…"  
  
"…that he'll send another twenty million men in Germany," he fills in.  
  
Oh. That's just awesome. So everyone knew it but me.  
  
"We cannot find twenty million men, Pius. Let alone until Friday. I need your help."  
  
"Harry, this is not the ministry's job. If you are asking for a new recruitment, I don't understand how I would be able to help. All our men are already fighting."  
  
"Not  _all_  of them," I correct.  
  
He eyes me cautiously and I take a deep breath, ready to talk. Starting a conversation about Azkaban in here is more than a taboo – the Ministry is too sophisticated to involve itself with it openly. My idea is good, but he's not going to like it.  
  
"Release the giants. They'd fight for us if we were to give them their freedom."  
  
"Impossible. The Dementors have done what was necessary long ago." At the thought of Dementors my arms chill again and I try to focus. We've no giants, no Englishmen, no force. So we might as well sit here and wait for Voldemort to blow us to pieces for our waste of space.  
  
What I think is not easy to be told. It's a troubling statement that even I cannot tell if makes me hopeful or sad. I cannot imagine an outcome in which happiness will somehow found its place to the world again. I don't know if it's true or just a fear of mine, just another wrong assumption I made and will turn against me. Still, all the facts lead here and I must keep the Minister close to me if I am to survive.  
  
I glance around as though to make sure no one hears us, and look him in the eye. He must take this seriously. Someone at last must believe me. "We are losing, Pius."  
  
For a long minute, the clock on the wall tick tocks worried, as if it can sense the tension of the room, feeling sorry for the unexpected turn of the events and the simplicity of such an ugly truth. Then, the minister gets up, as if to announce something important too, and turns his stare down, at his long fingers on the table.  
  
"I know, Harry Potter. We can do nothing about it."


	7. Chapter 7

_I awoke each morning with the desire to achieve, and to be a respected, meaningful man. To be, as simple as it sounds and as impossible as it actually was, right. And during the course of each day on the Dark Lord's side, my heart would descend from my chest into my stomach. By early afternoon, the day Potter left for the Battalion in which my son was fighting, I was overcome by the feeling that nothing was right here, or nothing was right here for me, and by the absurd desire to run away and leave it all behind.  
  
By evening I was fulfilled: alone in the magnitude of my son's absence, alone in the aimless guilt my wife burdened me with, alone in the large company of my allies. I am not wrong, I would repeat to myself over and over, I am not wrong. My life had unlimited potential for me to make things right, insofar as it was an empty white room. My wife would fall asleep with her heart at the foot of our bed, like some domesticated animal that was no part of her at all. And each morning she would wake with it again, blaming me, hating me, and the burden in me would become a little heavier each time, a little stronger, a little more right.  
  
By the midafternoon, when I realized that no news would come this time, like no news ever came back, I was again overwhelmed with the desire to be somewhere else, someone else. In someone other's side, perhaps. I thought of my own side, my own beliefs, apart from what everyone superior to me believed and out of admire I followed, and even apart from my known family name and the prestige I forced myself to be supporting over the years. I searched into me for the loyalty to myself and my beloved family, and my own, individual values. In dread, I found none.  
  
"Memories of the Blood Purge War", Lucius Malfoy - 2030 (page 97)_

* * *

  
  
"In two days," Voldemort announces.  
  
The hubbub in the office triggers up immediately.  
  
"My Lord, we don't have twenty million men," pleas Dolohov. "You're particularly asking of us to triple the Military out of nowhere."  
  
"This is not your concern, Antonin, and I advise you to stay out of it. The army I'm preparing to send is out of your reach."  
  
I eye Voldemort, worried. Where's he going to find so many wizards? "Shall I order new brooms?" I suggest.  
  
His laugh fills the room, lips curved over pale gums and as pointy teeth appear.  
  
"No, no Harry. This army won't need brooms, fortunately, although the mere picture of it would be extraordinary delightful. Nevertheless, prepare yourself all the same, for if this particular army succeeds, you'll have a rather busy Saturday."  
  
I'm going to have a busy Saturday anyway, and being busy is all I need to block my mind from thinking, so I don't complain.  
  
"My Lord, forgive me for mentioning this, but don't you consider it wise to inform us about this… army?" Lucius asks. I'm surprised he's been following the conversation, since for the best part of the last hour he hasn't taken his eyes from me.  
  
Voldemort dismisses his request with a wave of his hand. "Not at all."  
  
There's nothing that can be said after that, and honestly, it's the first time Voldemort calls us here without having anything specific to say. He even seems cheerful for some reason. He's playing with us, I think bitterly. Are we not his inner cycle? He can't be preparing something this big without us.  
  
We slowly begin to collect our papers and maps, and Voldemort opens the Floo as Hokey comes in to escort outside those travelling otherwise. I check my haversack again to make sure I have everything. Wand, painkillers, a portkey watch, food and three water flasks. A first aid book, some sedatives, cigars, a lighter, a blanket.  
  
"My Lord, I'm ready."  
  
He nods. "Yes, yes. Yaxley has been dirtying my yard with his presence for the last ten minutes, Harry. Hurry up and leave."  
  
Afraid of further interaction, I step out of the office as he approaches the Floo, probably to call someone.  
  
I wear my coat and a fluffy scarf, carrying the haversack on my back, and walk to the garden. Hokey jumps down the stair like a running toddler and lands on my feet, babbling apologies for accidentally tripping, and for being stupid. "Forgive Hokey, Master, Hokey will break his legs and walk on his broken bones, Master!" Hanging from my coat to emphasize his fake apologies, he slips another cigar pack on my pocket and scoots away. I smile at the empty hall, looking at the corner he disappeared to.  
  
"Potter." I turn around quickly.  
  
"Malfoy." I thought he'd used the Floo a few minutes ago.  
  
"You're going to France, are you not? Dragon was at the fifth battalion, the only one that was fighting without safeguards, an outrageous omission if you ask me. You see though, that was the Dark Lord's decision.  _And yours_."  
  
"Sod off, Malfoy." I push past him and he gets in my way again, his leather snake cloak billowing around him.  
  
"If my son is dead, his death will be on your hands, Potter. You will suffer so-"  
  
"You don't get it, DO YOU?" I explode. "If the Dark Lord wanted you to know if Draco's alive or not, he'd tell you. You think he really doesn't have a way to know these things? How daft are you? There's a reason he keeps you out of this, Malfoy. He doesn't have  _time_ for your grief. It'd make you useless."  
  
Lucius' cane holds me back and reaches up to my neck. Then, as if he changed his mind, he relaxes his face and balks.  
  
"Potter… Harry. You were classmates, you've known each other half your lives. You could have been friends, under the right circumstances, and he did want that, I assure you. You must understand. Narcissa hasn't been sleeping in months." I'd happily exchange her insomnia with my nightmares, I mentally scoff. "We love Dragon more than our lives, Potter. If I lose him-"  
  
"Draco has already lost himself even if he's alive." Like all of us have.  
  
His gloved hand keeps rubbing the head of his cane. "All I want is his wellbeing, Potter."  
  
"And what have you ever done about it?" He opens his mouth to respond but no sound comes out, and he stares. His muteness brings an ominous understanding to him that makes his lip twitch, and he finally sidesteps.  
  
"Find him, Potter. Alive." His plea fails to sound like an order, and I march out of the house without looking back.  
  
Yaxley waits for me in the yard indeed, wearing an equally thick coat with my own. We greet each other casually and walk out of the wards to meet the force he brought me. Only it's not a real force. The men are less than a hundred, and the nurses are… nuns. The men are gathered around them as if to keep them from running away, although they don't seem to have such intensions.  
  
Yaxley watches me, as if he knew he'd see me doubt his people. There's a particular nun who has distanced herself from the others and reads what appears to be a Bible through her teeth.  
  
"Um. Yaxley. What are these?" We can't possibly appear like that in the battlefield.  
  
"The country has only a hundred trained nurses at the time, all of them occupied elsewhere. The rest are nuns," he explains.  
  
I scorn, confused. "I don't understand, Yaxley. They're not muggles, are they?"  
  
"Potter, this is one of the best-kept secrets in our nation's history," The nuns inspect me under their hijabs, their heads lowered as they talk to each other, while some of them ignore us completely and read through lists with medicine kits and books.  
  
Yaxley continues, "When the war broke out, we were prepared to fight, but not to care for the wounded that our fighting created. While many people volunteered to care for the soldiers, the only ones with any experience are Catholics sisters. We removed them from the Ministry's penitentiary and told them to do their duty. They are told they will be spared from the exile."  
  
"They won't, though," I surmise.  
  
"Exactly."  
  
When did we become so inhuman, so cold about the value of life? When did we start treating those we arbitrarily call inferiors with such depreciation, such bleakness?  
  
Unsure of the outcome of this, I hem into my hand and start, turning to the group of people in front of us. "Your attention, please! As you must already know, we are to travel with a portkey to the French – German line borders. Those who have not travelled this way before may experience dizziness and confusion; this should not worry you at all though. The Dark Lord is planning to send a new army to take over Germany, and thus we must take back the wounded ones before the new battle begins.  
  
“Once we arrive, you are expected to divide into small groups and visit every tent in your reach. Help those you can, give sedatives to those you can't, and keep notes of everything you do. Time, names, medicines you use, everything. Write down all the names of the living ones as well as their health condition. These reports will be sent to hospitals and it's your job to ensure that the soldiers will be treated well. Write their names with permanent ink on their hands. Make notes of those who can't remember their names, if that occurs.  
  
“I lead this mission, so if you need anything, you will report to me. Do not take crucial decisions on your own. I wish good luck to all of you. Thank you."  
  
We share them a portkey watch per five persons and make sure no one surpluses. I realize the nuns don't even know what a portkey is, and some of them attempt to regulate the watches at the right hour.  
  
"Activate them, Commander. We're ready," Yaxley offers.  
  
Only I can't. "Um. Do it yourself. I think you should be the one to do it, that is."  
  
He casts the spell, proud of himself as I clutch my own portkey, and in less than five seconds we're all whirling in a twisting cyclone which lasts several seconds, until my feet fall jerkily to the ground and the swirling around me slows down and eventually stops.  
  
Everything happens as planned; the nurses run immediately to the nearest tents and I, for the first time, have the chance to look around and face what I did: the troops are nowhere to be seen, and from a vague distance all I can hear is desperate whimpers and what must be gun shots. The earth is brown – red under my feet. I can see two mass graves out of the colonel's tent, - empty and half burned, like most of the tents in sight. Which means, probably, that most men must have been packed like sardines in the well-off ones. The smell of death flesh fills the air, and tall piles of the clothes of the dead are being burned to ashes, the dark smoke stirring up to the sky. I stay petrified, not knowing from where to start.  
  
The colonel approximates to shake our hands as soon as he sees us, his own left arm bandaged and hung from his neck. He has a lot of scars on his face but is still smiling, somehow satisfied with the win. I let him take my hand in his and I mumble a "Nice to see you again," when the question hits me: "Why do I hear guns?"  
  
"Ah, Commander, you wouldn't guess!" He steps awkwardly next to me, pointing his finger to the depositories at the horizon. "The muggle weapons have a privilege the Killing Curse has not; they can kill without burden one's soul. So we took them as spoils after the battle and we now use them to release the cursed ones from their pain."  
  
"Cursed ones?" My stomach boils again, and I push myself to believe it's from the portkey travelling.  
  
"Some of our most wicked curses detonated on our own men. They didn't stand a chance."  
  
The brutality of the war tests a variety of abilities; mental strength is, as it seems, the most significant of them. The power to forget, to surpass the truth and its horrors, to make oneself numb to any kind of feelings, negative or positive, is the real challenge a man must face.  
  
"Oh."  
  
Two nurses run to the medicine boxes and carry the biggest one to a tent.  
  
"Should I go help them?"  
  
The colonel laughs. "Trust me, Commander, it'd make you lose your breakfast. Let's leave the men to their misery for now."  
  
He leads us to another tent which looks like being under a heating charm, I realize as I stoop inside. We take our seats around a plastic table and I loosen my scarf.  
  
"Have you provided heating charms to the other tents as well?" I ask the colonel. He furrows his eyebrows in a mocking grimace.  
  
"In all respect, Commander, the new generation doesn't really get the point of this war. You don't understand the purpose, the reason to live always at war until it reaches an end, to grow up with battle and sacrifice. I guess it's not your fault. It's just how you were brought up-"  
  
"You do  _not_ know how I was brought up."  
  
"In my dreams, Commander, I hear the crush of bones, the rattle of the muggles' guns, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield. There's no heroism or touching feelings, or… heating charms on the way, but only domination and atrocities. What do you know about it?"  
  
Yes, what do I know? The colonel seems to be enjoying his own words, delighted about showing to Harry James Potter himself his sagacity and great experience. He's a thin man at his sixties, with grey hair and a small white mustache.  
  
He waves his hand in a sniffy motion, "And what about these spinsters you brought here? Will they manage to cure the soldiers?"  
  
I turn to Yaxley for verification and he speaks up. "They will provide care, comfort, and food, but it'd be foolish to promise anything more than that. No doctor had time to follow, so these women are all we have. We have supplies with us though, and the nuns can read and write letters, too."  
  
The colonel scoffs. "Well that's the ability I was looking for!"  
  
"Gentlemen," I butt in, "this is not the time to argue. The nurses provide their useful services although they know we are the enemy. Let's be somewhat grateful."  
  
A scream is heard and I jump up, only to understand the other two men weren't shocked at all. They give me a look which very much indicates a "what's wrong with you" worry. Yaxley arches his eyebrows and his forehead wrinkles.  
  
"All right?" he asks.  
  
"Excuse me," I mumble scratching my cheek, and quickly get out.  
  
The cold air rushes to my face and I look around at the vast flatness that has been loosely called home from my soldiers for the past six months. The orange sands have been spotted with black stains, and the prominent smell of forthcoming snow is overrun with the spoiled stench of sickness. I can still hear Yaxley arguing inside the tent, and I move forward to where the scream that I heard came from.  
  
Walking among the khaki tents, I see the nurses run and wipe their hands on small towels, carrying flasks and bottles around, giving orders to each other and hurrying to do everything at the same time.  
  
The men seem to bring the dead out of the tents to give more space to the living, throwing the corpses aside and joking about unrelated to the situation things. A nurse is silently praying behind a column, her eyes on the sky, before she gets back to a crumbling tent.  
  
 _You are a pathetic slave, nothing but a funny charlatan running around for the others' amusement, an acting entertainer for our Lord._  I spot freeze, checking myself and around, the familiar feeling of exposure making my blood throb and my throat itch keenly. No one seems to notice my presence, and yet I feel all they eyes on me. There's a knot on the back of my mouth that makes my eyes blink more rapidly than the normal, while severe palpitations cause my hands to shake. Then it's gone.  
  
The scream is back again and I follow it into the last tent in the row. I push the cloth opening aside and get in. Up close, the voice is clearer, and I easily point the bed it comes from.  
  
"It's only a scratch, don't cut it off! No, no, don't cut my arm off, why do that, it's only a scratch, doesn't hurt, I swear, don't…!"  
  
There, within a few feet of me, a nurse is stopping blood that endeavors to make its exit through a ghastly grape wound in the leg of another soldier; while over yonder, beneath blanket, another wounded boy is in the act of giving water from his canteen to an older man who lies on the cot beside him. As I glance around me, at the disfigured limbs and scorched bodies, the moil in my throat returns, and I can't help but think - is it really worth it, to be strong?  
  
Does it worth it for me to stay alive, to watch this happening? I shouldn't have lived past the Battle of Hogwarts; with a fierce residue of pride, I should have received the Killing Curse when it was aimed at me.  
  
 _Bite me, and you'll only live long enough to watch your friends die._  I put my hand on my mouth and nose and a nurse approaches me to hand me over a violet aromatic handkerchief.  
  
"Place it on your nose, kid. It helps the nausea dry off."  
  
Her voice is sweet and soothing; she doesn't know who I am. When my vision is clear again, I thank her and she gives me a notebook, more forcefully than necessary.  
  
"We need your sign, lad. These are all the names we've written down from the west front. We report to you, am I right?"  
  
"That's right," I agree, and moving the handkerchief from my face, I check the names.  
  
 _So many people,_ I think.  _So many injured men._  Then, shock.  
  
"Um, Sister. Who's he?" I show the name with my index finger.  
  
"Frank? He doesn't remember his full name, unfortunately. He was shot through the ribs, bad condition. The man besides him said he never spoke a word after he was struck. Amnesia, I suspect."  
  
"No, not him. This one. Mafoy. Are you sure it's not Malfoy?"  
  
She curls her lips thinking. "Hm. No, we are not sure, absolutely not. He's not speaking either, so he mouthed his name at me. Do you know him? I can take you to him." Her eyes goggle as if encouraging me to follow her, like a teacher would do to a very young troubled kid. I follow her.  
  
With her wide, white cornet looking almost like wings, the nurse does resemble a battlefield angel, and her fellows do too. I deeply hope that the sight of those wing-like cornets will tell my soldiers that relief is on the way; that someone who cares for them is coming, at last.  
  
She takes me to another tent, not far away, and the moment I see the white blond head resting on the pillow, I know it's him.  
  
"It's Malfoy. Correct it." She does.  
  
The question escapes my lips before I can force myself keep it back. "Is he bad?"  
  
The nurse sighs and makes a motion to touch my arm, but at that I step away. "You'd better see for yourself." She lowers her hand, and hugging her notebook, she leaves.  
  
The cot Draco lies on is dirty and, like the rest of the beds, smells of piss and something foul I can't actually identify. His eyes are open but he doesn't seem to focus on anything in particular. I sit on his cot and he tenses, sensing the pressure on the thin mattress.  
  
It's hard to hide my timid smile – it's almost like happiness, if happiness still exists, somewhere in this wide, scary dark world. I brush my fingers over his arm and it's surprisingly soothing, seeing him, having contact with someone I know, someone I used to know before all this, before the war, before the deaths, in a time of innocence where the return of "You-Know-Who" was being whispered at nights in dark alleys instead of praised in rich homes and galas.  
  
"Hey, Draco. Can you see me? It's me, Harry. Harry Potter."  
  
At that, as if awaken from a deep sleep, his eyes blink and roll in a false attempt to focalize, and I notice for the first time that there's no white around his irises, and instead small broken vessels and spread around the grey, filling it dark red. A long wide scar extends from his left eyebrow down to his nose and cheek, the stitches amateurish and hastily made of common black thread.  
  
I try not to flinch as tears damp his face as soon as he recognizes me, and he attempts to form incomprehensible words. Dehydration has struck him as well – his lips are chapped and small skin flakes have been winkled out of them. When he fails to speak, he keeps looking at me, expecting. Understanding hits me and I tighten my grip around his forearm. His skin is feverish hot.  
  
"No need to worry Draco. They are all right. Snooty and stubborn as usual, only less rich. Your mother is really worried, though. I think she makes a living hell out of every day for your father. She kind of drives him mad."  
  
He chuckles, although voiceless, the pain visible on his expression. Only a battle lost is sadder than a battle won; and Draco never cared about all this, for he was just another kid with strict, cold parents, and no hushing words can change what he was forced to do anymore, nor what he has done and what he's seen.  
  
His eyes urge me to go on. There's not much to say, really, but the need to keep talking overwhelms me too. "They will take you to the hospital by the morning. We have flying carriages and portkeys. You're going to be all right."  
  
The traces of happiness fade off him as he lowers his eyes to his torso. I follow his stare, and carefully lift the worn blanket to see underneath, to his naked torso and belly. Realization kicks in; this is where the smell was coming from.  
  
His chest is covered in thick bandages, although blood has passed through them and has been smudged around, in brown and black blots. The exposed skin around the gauzes is torn and open scars are throbbing as if they have a breath of their own, while creamy yellow liquid seethes on them and creates a deformed crust of infected, swelled skin. The scars reach down to his pelvis and stop to a deep stab near his belly button, with a bumping brown edema formed around it.  
  
Maintaining my composure, I swallow the heavy bile on the back of my throat and cover Draco again, tucking the blanket around him to keep him warm. I have to look away for a few seconds before I speak again.  
  
"You'll be alright," I repeat louder, sounding confident.  
  
Another tear at the corner of his eye.  _Thank you, Harry,_  he mouths, the words cutting into my chest. Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier shedding tears on his death bed, will think hard before starting a war.  
  
He knows I'm lying.  
  
Out of the tent prevails chaos, and I desperately long for fresh air. Pushing nuns and working men aside, I find a quiet place and I light a cigarette, resting on a tall column, my head leaning back. No one is going to notice me smoking here, and even if they do, I can always tell I found the pack on some tent.  
  
 _Draco's dying._  That simple. I burst into a neurotic laughter, holding my knees as if to keep myself from falling down. _Dying._  Everybody's dying, for fuck's sake. Everybody's suffering, losing limbs, losing hope, losing everything that makes them human. Not even a hundred of victories will make right what happened here. Not an Obliviation spell, not a cleverly settled speech, or gold, or arrogantly moving on. It's too much. Too hard. Too difficult to keep doing this. It shouldn't be this way. Everything's wrong. Everything's wrong and Voldemort is still alive, and nothing hurts more than that, except that me being alive as well, which is worse, and-  
  
A hand pokes my back and I jump up horrified at the unexpected touch, a vivid image of Snape's hands dragging and pushing me around suddenly attacking my vision.  
  
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?" I yell, only to realize it was a young nurse who touched me, and I have now grabbed her from the neck, almost strangling her. For a second I am tempted to keep squeezing, only to watch the life slipping out of her; a mirthless laugh and a useless curse are stuck at the tip of my tongue - then I relax my grip and let my arm fall down, paralyzed.  
  
Probably used to paranoid behaviors, she keeps up her kind expression and worryingly asks, "Forgive me if a scared you, Mister Potter, are you feeling alright?"  
  
The soiled ground holds my glare as I take another cigar out. "Yeah, sorry."  
  
"We have boxes with painkillers at the base and we need to move them at the western tents. They're quite heavy and everybody seems to be already busy."  
  
Of course. The people here are in direct need of care and I am so selfish to dare still think of my own misery. My eyes are watering and I turn my back to her. Why do I have to ridicule myself all the time? Blinking my sadness away, I nod again, unable to really start a conversation.  
  
"Okay, I'll do it."  
  
The boxes are not as heavy as I thought and it takes less than half an hour to move them. Groans and cries are being heard from the tents, and nurses keep showing up to wash their bloodied hands at the freezing faucet. The sanitary commission of the Ministry will be mad if we return their nurses with pneumonia, but we cannot obtain better conditions.  
  
When the night falls, the colonel provides us a tent along with the nuns, and after their making a fuss about sleeping under the same roof with men, they give in and we finally relax. It's a weird thing, to try rest while all I hear is muffled cries and the name of God murmured in prayers. Yaxley snorts, and I toy with a strand of hair on my forehead, keeping my eyes closed, another slice of death dominating me, this time with the mask of sleep.  
  
Snape's face is sweaty, lips parted, eyes wide as if swollen. He pumps me to the sheets, a fleshy sound filling the room as he thrusts faster and faster into me. He moans,  _"Look at me, look at me,"_  but I look away, at professor McGonagall, and Ginny, who are watching me shocked, pointing their fingers at me and covering their mouths, and as my vision clears I see Hermione, Charlie and the twins being there too.  
  
"Why did you turn against us, Harry? I loved you!" Ginny cries.  
  
"You're absolutely disgusting," Hermione guffaws.  
  
 _Stupid girl, you'd be dead like your parents if it wasn't for me,_ I almost retort, but then Snape comes and collapses on top of me with a grunt, and the only words I manage to utter are  _please, stop, STOP, why are you doing this to me – DON'T-_  
  
I wake up clutching my own throat, suddenly aware of my being suffocated. I roll off the cot and fall on my hands and knees on the muddy soil. Gasping heavily, I grasp the nun's coverlet next to me, violently dragging it off her to alarm her. As soon as I grab her ankle she jumps up and throws a coat around her, kneeling down before me and bringing a beacon to my face.  
  
"Calm down," she insists, as though it depends on my decision to do so. My panting increases and my chest shakes. I try to talk, to explain,  _I'm suffocating,_  but I fail and my breath shortens even more. "I'm dying," I explain between my short gasps.  
  
She quickly checks for fever, handing me over a small paper bag to attach to my nose and mouth.  
  
"Take deep breaths into it and relax. You're just stressed, young man."  
  
It takes several minutes for me to calm down, and I keep breathing into the bag like a silly kid even when the shock has passed. _What's wrong with me?_  Thank Merlin no one else woke up.  
  
Climbing back to my bed, I think of thanking the nun for her help but feel embarrassed to do so, and hope she's fallen back to sleep. I lose control very easily lately, I contemplate. I've become weak.  
  
 _But I never did anything to deserve all this._ Stop slumping into your own misery, Potter, I scold myself.  _You're not hurt, are you?_ No. Of course not. I can't be hurt for damage happening to me. I have killed people I barely knew their names. I poisoned drinks without questioning why I'm doing it for.  
  
I slapped a kid in the street once, because she said hi to me. I couldn't have done otherwise. She had the Muggleborn Badge on her arm, and I was being watched. What would she say when she returned to the ghetto she was probably living in? That Commander Potter was a kind man and would show mercy to their blood filth? Soon they'd make queues out of my office, begging for favors and mercy. They'd think I'd help them, but the moment they'd step foot in the Ministry they were doomed. I couldn't risk it.  
  
The north ghetto was taken apart less than a month later – the kid probably stays in the islands now, with her parents having been tricked into believing they'd be sent to temporary working camps.  
  
I have eaten dinner at rich manors, sharing the table with generals and colonels who had served at the Islands. They'd describe in detail how they'd torture the prisoners, organizing contests among them, competing about who would cast the most inspired Imperius to his victims. I had laughed at their jokes. I had to.  
  
I visited businesses offering work to muggleborns, before Britain was cleaned. They were being forced to work without brakes or even access to water, being magically whipped or Avada Kedavra-ed when they'd faint out or exhaustion. They were treated worse than animals. They were forced to  _admit_ they were animals.  
  
And yet, here I am, daring to add to my nightmares a rape that hurt no one but me. That's the king of egoist that I am. Snape's right. I'm arrogant. Doesn't matter.  _Not essential. I deserved every second of it._ The nun speaks up, and I turn to look at her cot, surprised she's still awake.  
  
"Do you believe in God, Harry Potter?"  
  
The answer comes easily. "No."  
  
"You should pray." Her tone indicates that she must be in her early forties. What would her God, or any god do, to prevent suffering in a world war? Some daemons will not just crawl away in the dark.  
  
"Tried it. Didn't help."  
  
"The war trauma cannot be carried away with discretion, my boy. You hide horrors you cannot fight alone. You need to talk about it. Lustrate your soul before it is late."  
  
"You mean before I die," I respond.  
  
"You will face your sins, eventually."  
  
I face them already, and her religious rubbish only makes my discomfort grow. "And you'll face your fate, so. Good night."  
  
"Do not fool yourself, my boy. You wouldn't think I saved those lives today so I could buy myself a few more months in freedom, would you? I'd do the same even if I was to die tomorrow morning."  
  
"Good night," I repeat. I've no pillow so I burry my head under the blanket, hide my face under my arms, and somehow, I drift again to sleep.  
  
The first portkeys are activated by the morning as promised, and some flying carriages have come to embark the ones in the worst condition. We clutter up as much men as we can, pressing them together in an inhuman way, so we can put in more. Having spent the best part of the night dealing with the past, I'm tired and I desperately need to shower. Yaxley and his men come by as well, thanking me for making this mission possible.  
  
I nod my head and thank them too. The cries and swears of the soldiers pierce our ears as we head back to the tent, the Portkey watch awaiting us to the table.  
  
So, that was it. The soldiers will be sent to every available hospital in Europe, and will be treated as fallen heroes. The nurses will be portkeyed back to the Ministry, probably to be imprisoned until they travel to the islands. Their help will not be appreciated, of course; let alone guarantee them a better treatment. It is possible that they won't even live to tell the story.  
  
"Commander," Yaxley touches my shoulder and I think I was running too fast to get to the portkey. He pants too, running after me, his wand on his hand.  
  
"What is it?" I need to be alone. There are too much people around, and I have an urge to break his hand for touching me.  
  
He smiles. "You seem to need a break from this all, and I know a place you might like. How long has it been since you visited London, anyway?"  
  
I've no desire to visit London as it is now ever again. I used to go there with Aunt Petunia, when Dudley needed new clothes and toys. The muggle stores won't be there anymore though, and in their place now are destroyed ghettoes inhabited by the homeless, burned buildings, and some wizard pubs and brothels for the soldiers.  
  
Petunia's besotted applauds would give me a good laugh, every time Dudley would try out a new sweater.  _Oh, how cute and wonderful is my sweet Duddykins with his new clothes! My little boy is going to make everybody jealous, isn't he?_  
  
"Sorry Yaxley, I'm tired. Maybe another time."  
  
"I've been in your shoes, you know. You think you are too young for all this. You need to leave what happens here in the past." I almost burst to laughter. How the fuck am I any younger than Malfoy? Or is it because I'm Voldemort's favourite one? _If only that one was still true._  
  
I don't need to leave my past behind. My past is too fresh to let me leave it anyway, and Yaxley doesn't even know what he's talking about. None of this is past; the war, the suffering, my faults, my – tortures. Snape. How will I ever be able to leave that in the past? How can I even call it past? And if it's really past, then why is it still happening, every day, every time I close my eyes? Every time I hear someone behind me, and I don't know who it is?  
  
How is it that I get an almost irresistible urge to kill anyone who happens to touch me unexpectedly? How do I leave behind, let alone forget, something that is still happening, that keeps happening over and over?  _How?How do I do that?_  
  
"Commander. Are you even listening?"  
  
What? "Yes, of course."  
  
"I know a nice place in London. I think you'll like it. I can manipulate the portkey a little bit. We'll be back before curfew."  
  
I can't trust him. I can't trust anyone. I want to go home. He raises a hand when I begin to tell him so.  
  
"For a few hours, I promise." He doesn't want me to follow him because he likes my company, though.  
  
Suspiciously, I ask, "What's the real reason you want me to come with you?"  
  
He sighs. "Let's just say that it would be negatively noticed if I went to London alone."  
  
Too tired to argue, I postpone my plans for peace of mind and agree, barely muttering an "okay".  
  
We stay behind until everyone has left; I follow the wounded bodies passing in front of my eyes, one by one, as our men carry them wreathed in blankets. I search for familiar faces, looking for names I might know, hoping, having no idea what I'm actually hoping for. I search for Malfoy but fail to find him again. I almost hope he's alright, then don't. It's too painful to hope for anything.  
  
The transportations complete and the carriages fly away. I fold the scarf around my neck tighter and my nostrils drip as we walk back. It's a harsh winter, indeed. I don't bother to sit as we get into the tent; instead I stand in the middle of it, waiting for Yaxley to recast the spell in the portkey. Envy overwhelms me at the sight of his simple wand swishes. How hopeless am I, a squib in a world ruled by wizards who kill muggles? I bite back a bitter chuckle and Yaxley holds my hand.  
  
"One," he begins. I wish I had my magic back. Oh, all the things I could do with it. Like kill Voldemort. "Two," free the muggleborns, beg them for forgiveness. Go for a ride with Ron and Hermione and Ginny. "Three," torture Snape until his cries are all I can hear.  
  
The familiar dizzying swirl of the transportation envelops me, and we land on an empty street, debris all around us. I bent forward and support my hands on my knees to catch my breath.  
  
Yaxley laughs. It's a cheerful laugh, splendid, and I swear it'd be contagious had I heard it in some other place and time. I turn to him confused. He waves his hand in a 'nothing, nothing,' gesture, then laughs again. "This place used to make me fucking happy, once upon a time. Oh, how I missed London!"  
  
 _So did I. And I miss Surrey too. I miss my family, which my_  Lord _burned to ashes._  It's funny how I'd never consider Petunia and Vernon family when they were alive, but miss them now they're gone.  
  
The London I remember is indeed nowhere to be seen. The colourful, glittering displays of clothes and aromas are lost to view, hidden behind the large Ministry posters that had been pasted over them. A few windows are boarded up and most of the buildings have collapsed.  
  
Pushing all thoughts aside, I follow him to a filthy alley, as we walk past a small crowd of people gathered in front of a fire into a barrel, and rubbing their hands together. No real surprise, since they have poor clothing and grubby faces. They gawk at us, some of them hiding small kids behind their backs. Muggleborns, I assume. I turn my stare away and walk faster.  
  
For about ten minutes we don't exchange a word, but simply walk; I am about to ask Yaxley where we're heading to when we reach a high stone wall and we stop. Yaxley spells the ruins aside and warns, "You'd better step back now."  
  
I do as he suggests, and he points his wand to the wall, mumbling something that must be a keyword. It reminds me of what I would do in Diagon Alley to get out from the Leaky Cauldron. A red door appears through the motioning bricks and Yaxley opens it to reveal a small iron staircase. He extends his hand. "Well, after you."  
  
I don't want to. The disquiet makes my hands sweat again and I cannot ignore anymore that it was a mistake to come here; and although dangerous and absolutely stupid, I have no choice but follow. His magic is my only way to go back. I nod, agreeing, and cautiously I climb down the narrow staircase, to meet whatever doom is waiting for me there. It's almost grief, the realization that I barely care.  
  
The moment my feet reach the floor I gape like I've just discovered fire. I find myself in an average room with a small theatre scene in the far end, a middle aged woman singing a smooth jazz song on it. She's dressed up in an impressive long dress made of pink feathers, her face painted in a dramatic expression. An orchestra is lazily following behind her, while she waves her hands from the microphone to her hips. The walls are covered with thick scarlet curtains, a dim light coming from the ceiling and some scattered candles floating in the air. The floor is covered in a dark carpet too, clean and rich under my shoes.  
  
Around the scene, a dozen of small tables are being occupied, comfortable looking people sitting back on their chairs and watching, no restrictions to where they're coming from. I can see a few uniformed men as well as middle – class common citizens, and some muggle looking companionships too. The uniformed men don't seem like intending to arrest the muggles, either. They sit nearby and yet completely ignore each other. Compared with the reality just outside the door, this place seems to be at the end of the world.  _Impossible._  
  
"Where are we?" I scan everything with my eyes, shocked.  
  
Yaxley stands beside me, proud for the look of shock spread on my face. "In a good place, that's for sure. In here there's no censorship, no war, no deaths or wallowing. This is a cabaret, Commander. A place of sins and beauty."  
  
"But why-"  _is it behind ward protections?_  
  
"Don't you get it? Look around you. Most people here are muggles and muggleborns. We're into their resistance nest - into core of their revolution plans and hiding. They host strip shows and musical nights to gather people, and yet behind all this they just mass their kind to build up a force."  
  
I shudder. Are we here to kill them?  
  
He continues, "People here do not have to stick to the rules of society. The Ministry knows, of course; we don't care to shut them down or kill them, because you see, they're harmless. There's nothing they can possibly do against us, so we just let them have their fun until the Proclamation about them is announced. For now, this is merely a venue for political commentary."  
  
 _We won't kill them. Thank god we won't kill them._  We take a seat at the front tables and take out our coats, hanging them on the backs of our chairs. So, not all English muggles are killed. This new information makes me relax a little, for the first time in a long week. The scene is not high or distant from the tables, and the middle aged singer smiles at us, in a way of greeting.  
  
I search through my mind for the correct words to say to Yaxley, but find none. Is he helping them? Should I scold him and force him take us back? Voldemort might hear about this. Maybe he ordered Yaxley bring me here to see my reaction. _You do not mourn my soldiers. You do not mourn my loyal Death Eaters. You mourn the worms._  As much as I know I shouldn't be here, I can't bring myself up to demand our departing. Plus, the music is surprisingly soothing.  
  
A waitress comes up to us, wearing a short dress matching the carpet and the curtains. She's about to smile to us too, when she looks at my forehead and suddenly cries out and steps back, her mouth gaping open. "It's Harry Potter! Harry Potter is here!"  
  
The music stops and everybody turns to look at me. The singer remains on the scene unmoving, her back proudly straight even as her shoulders threat to haunch. They think I'm here to arrest them, I realize. Or kill them. If I defend myself I'll be considered a traitor, and I think of taking my wand out and blackmailing them to stop this nonsense or face the Ministry.  
  
Yaxley breaks the awkward silence. "Come on, no need to stop for us! Keep singing, my lady. Entertain us."  
  
I thank him silently by ordering a couple of whiskeys, and the waitress runs away, to bring the two glasses and a bottle in less than a minute. Yaxley clinks his glass to my own and gulps a bin amount of alcohol.  
  
Unsure, the band begins playing music again, at first slowly and cautious. _Muggles being free at such times_ , I think. _This must be a miracle._ The singer tries to synchronize the lyrics with the band, continuing the song from where she left it. I take a sip and watch her. Soon, she finds her rhythm again, the song deep low and sentimental. I nod at the companionships that were sitting beside us, now standing awkwardly at the dark corners of the room. Taking my suggestion as an order, they hesitantly return to their seats.  
  
I hate them, I realize; I despise every inch of their flesh. I hate them because they know who I am, they surely must have heard my story – and yet they are afraid of me, afraid of the man who grew up as an orphan because Voldemort murdered his parents. They can't see who I really am, or that I'm no less a prisoner than they are. All they see is Voldemort's man.  
  
I hate them, because they are afraid of me. Because my presence here brings them nothing but pure disgust. _I'm not going to give you up, I want to tell them. I still care. I'm sorry. I'm not here to harm you. I don't even want to be here._  
  
Rage fills up my lungs and, seeing I have already emptied a glass I don't even remember refilling, fill it for the third time and keep drinking. I notice a couple that has remained at the dark corner, and that they have begun a slow dance on their own, away from the tables. It begun like a hug, a simple one, at first. Careful and reserved, they hugged each other and unintentionally followed a waltz, completely irrelevant to the music. The woman rests her head to the man's shoulders. He strokes her back and neck, whispering to her nonstop.  
  
It's just a few minutes later, when I buy them all drinks and the alcohol keeps coming and coming, that the customers find their smiles again and relax. The uniformed men turn out to be workers or our army indeed – they join our table and begin a long description of the new Azkaban sells, the protection they provide and how the Dementors are being controlled under Voldemort's yoke as they have never been before. Their experiences are noticeable, or so they think.  
  
It is a good opportunity for me to prattle; when the conversation turns to Hogwarts, I insist on how it should be rebuilt immediately after the war. The education of the children is the most powerful weapon we should rely to, I point out, and they openly disagree, telling me they didn't finish any school and yet they're more useful than most. We stay until the curfew, barely noticing the time passing by, the small talk nonsensical and easily floating away. It is when the men depart and Yaxley visits the men's room, that a girl approaches me and sits on his chair.  
  
"Mister Potter. My name is Catherine, I'm muggleborn. I need your help."  
  
I shift to my chair and leave my drink down, ready to dismiss her and changing my mind. They beg for favors in the ministry, in the streets, in the battles. They can't probably beg for favors in a brothel – like hole like this too.  
  
"Help with what?" And I always hear what they need. I always hear before I turn them down, because I have to know what kind of evil I inflict upon them. I have to know how heartless I am, every time.  
  
"I have a fiancé. We were going to marry and… Well, it doesn't matter. He was called last month to show up in the Ministry. I wanted to follow him, but my boss blackmailed me that if I went to the camps too, he'd make my mother work in my place. She's old."  
  
She tucks a strand of blond hair behind her ear. Her shoulders are skinny, and hunch occasionally as she talks. She seems to be in a hurry to say everything she wants, all at once.  
  
"The supervisors broke in to our home one night. They told him he should appear in the Atrium Hall next morning, and when he resisted complying, they arrested him. I had less than five minutes to make his suitcase. I wrote his name on top of it, with permanent ink, and… a charm. I had a necklace charm - I hid it in a tucked in cloak. It was a golden phoenix feather, with a pearl on it; my father gave it to me when I was little."  
  
I let the jazz song blend in with her words and relax back. I can't help her, and there's no use to be focused on what she's saying, but still - she's Muggleborn. She's free. Maybe there is a chance for this world to become a better place someday, after all.  
  
"I told him to wear it on his neck, for good luck. To remember that I love him. I – I saw a Ministry worker a month later, coming out of a restaurant in London. My lucky charm was on his neck."  
  
Well. "Maybe he had the same as you."  
  
"It is unique."  
  
Then maybe her fiancé bought his freedom with it and hid away. "What are you trying to tell me?"  
  
"Mister Potter… There was no way for a stranger to have it, you see? Unless… Unless his suitcase never travelled with him. Unless he's not gone to the islands for work."  
  
She cups my hand to hers and I wrest it away immediately. Why does everybody keep touching me? "You must know, Mister, please, oh please tell me the truth!" She leans closer.  
  
Truth? I can't even contact my own friends, and she expects me to contact hers? This is the kind of misery I can't stand. This is the grief I can't stand to know that exists in this world – caused by Voldemort and myself.  
  
She clutches the fabric of her dress, not knowing what to do with her hands. "I hear some say that there's a reason people never come back. That reason is that they are being killed."  
  
It is illegal to kill workers. "You shouldn't believe everything you hear. This isn't getting you anywhere." I take a sip and slam my glass to the table to give emphasis to my words.  
  
Apparently she's not finished though. "Have you been there? How do you know-"  
  
"Those. Are. Rumors. Remember your place and don't doubt my authority." I wait for a regret that doesn't come. I can't help her.  
  
Then her lips crush to mine, and all I know is my vision going dead black as I push her away with both hands. Panic stricken, I jump up so precipitously that my chair flips over and I almost fall down too. I rub my sleeve to my mouth frantically.  
  
 _At the touch of his hands probing at my thighs, my head jerks up. "LET ME GO!" My head all but falls back to the greasy pillows as the pain of my injured temple assaults me again, and I can do nothing to prevent his touch, not even the littlest struggle, and horror catches up to me again._ I draw my wand out and almost stab it between her eyes.  
  
"WHERE'S YOUR RESPECT?" I scream from the top of my lungs, shaking so much I have to support the wand with both hands to keep it up. "WHY DID YOU DO THAT?" For a moment all I want is to crush her head down and smash it. Then, as if waking up from a drug driven sleep, I look around to realize that I have drawn all the eyes at me again, and panting, I lower my wand.  
  
"I need to know where he is, get me to him, please, I beg you!" And then, forming the words while no real sound is coming out: "I'll do anything, Mister Potter."  
  
It'll take more than that. Turning my back to her, I get Yaxley's coat and decide to wait for him outside.  
  
"John Dover!" Her voice echoes behind me as I climb up the stairs, as though I care. "His name is John Dover!"  
  
I slam the door angrily and wait at the clink alley gasping hard, struggling to take generous amounts of air in. When I fail to calm down, I slouch down to the dirty sidewalk and rub my forehead. For any passenger of the night I look like a homeless Muggle too, I realize, and I bury my head into my arms, the anticipation of a possible better world slowly fading away.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think about this story. You can leave a comment here or message me at arrisha@gmx.com


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